"I am Sandy Morley!"
Cynthia gave a frightened glance at the tall, dark stranger in the road. She noticed, as if for the first time, his high laced boots, his corduroy trousers fastened in them, his flannel shirt and felt hat. All was fine and different, oh! so different from the ragged ugliness of the hills. That a stranger should be so clad did not interest her, but that her childhood's friend and slave should wear this livery of position shattered the beautiful portrait of the "Biggest of Them All" by one cruel blow.
"No! You cannot be Sandy—not Sandy Morley." Cynthia stepped back with outstretched hands as if to ward off an attack. The light faded from Sandy Morley's face and his eyes grew dark and pleading.
"I've been right homesick all the years," he faltered. "I've tried to make myself worthy to come back. Always I have dreamed of you standing as you stand now under the dogwoods, to welcome me, but now that I have come up The Way I find myself a—stranger!"
Cynthia was clutching the bough of a tree for support; her eyes were strained and pathetic.
"I—I do not know what I have expected," she whispered, her eyes clinging to his; "but it is this-er-way. I have made a different Sandy, and I've kept him so long in my dreams and fancies, that to see him a man, hurts. Oh! it hurts here!"
The clasped hands touched the panting bosom. Then Sandy came close to her and laid his firm, thin hand upon hers. The touch, the contact, brought sharply to the girl the memory of their parting when, beside The Way, she had asked him to marry her some day and Sandy had kissed her!
"Little Cynthia, try to make a place in Lost Hollow for the man Sandy, who has come home a lonely stranger."
He seemed old and detached, but his nearness and the memory of their last interview composed Cynthia. She drew back and the withdrawal hurt Sandy more than she could know.
"I—I must go!" she panted and turned, as in the old parting, and ran without one backward look.