All the way the joint was stiffening and getting more painful. His face beamed in the effort to conceal his suffering. When they reached the steps he leaned his head against a column; he was wearied and felt that he could bear no more.
“Come, lie down; I’ll fix the bed for you and find grandpa,” she urged.
“No, come back; I’ll sit here on the step awhile. I must be going soon.”
Dear little heart, he would never while he lived forget her.
“How can you go, hurt as you are?”
“Sit down here by me, I have but a few minutes with you. I ordered my horse for five o’clock.”
Without further resistance she took the seat. She had not forgotten that his will was the only one she ever met stronger than her own.
“Forgive me?” looking up to him, she asked.
“Don’t use that word between us.” He gathered her hands in his own, partly for fear she might touch his knee. Soon his horse came around.
“Poor cripple,” Esther said with a caressing accent, stretching her hand toward his knee, as he mounted. Then she pressed her hands hard against her eyelids as he said good-bye. When she looked up again he was gone. She stood sighing as if her soul would leave her body, as he rode on at a gallop, outlined against the far blue of the hills.