"If he were here now," mused Donelle, the while playing a charming sonata, "I'd push him off the rocks and have done with it! What good is he? All his life he's been messing things, and I'm horribly afraid of him. I wish he was dead."
A crackling of the dry bushes startled her and she turned to see, coming down the Right of Way leading from the road to the river, Tom Gavot!
Donelle knew him at once though his good clothes, his happy, handsome face did their best to disguise him.
"Why!" she cried, getting up with a smile, "when did you get back?"
"A week ago," said Tom, "and it's about time. It has been three years since I went away." He beamed upon the girl. "I've learned how to see a road where there isn't even a trail," he went on. "I'm a surveyor. And you?" He glanced at her violin.
"I've learned to fiddle." Donelle's eyes could not leave the dark, handsome face. It was such a good, brave face, and the mere fact of Tom Gavot having returned seemed to make things safer. Tom was like that, quiet, strong, and safe! In a flash Donelle realized that the sense of shame and degradation which had driven her from the Walled House was driving her now to Tom Gavot. She felt sure that he, that all the others, had known what she herself knew now, and yet it had not made Tom despise her.
Her lips quivered and her eyes filled.
"It is so good to see you!" she said softly.
Tom's face was suddenly very serious.
"I came back to see how things were going," he said quietly, "and now that I am here, I'm going to stay."