"I stopped because I do not want to threaten or boast. But I will say, Mr. Kavanagh, that when I find her I'll beg of her to be my wife, and if she consents I promise you that no two sour old men are going to spoil our happiness! I want a fair understanding with you."
"Queer notions you have of a fair understanding," retorted Mr. Kavanagh. "You'd call it a fair understanding, would you, to come here and tell me to get off my own doorstep because you claimed the place?"
"I mean that no man has the right to refuse happiness to his own or to others simply to curry his own personal spite. That's all, sir."
He whirled his horse and galloped away. He halted at the church, threw the reins over the animal's head and went and sat on the steps. He wanted to think. He wanted to calm himself. He hoped that the place would console him with its memories, afford him some hope, some suggestion.
He wondered now why he had allowed anything to delay that search. Yet he understood vaguely that she had hidden herself from him by her own choice. She had fled with wounded heart. He had not dared to seek her too eagerly.
The red eyes of Kavanagh's house mocked him.
Suddenly he started up. A figure, flitting and wraith-like, was coming toward him from those eyes. It was running. He could hear the swift patter of feet. She came straight to him where he stood; he had not dared to run toward her.
"I heard—I followed!" she gasped, and the next moment was sobbing in his arms.
All his talk to her for a long time was incoherent babbling of love and remorse. Then he held her close.
"Little girl," he said, "I've learned in the world outside. I've learned many things. But this—this I've learned bitterly and forever! There's love of fame and of power and of mere beauty—but there's only one love after all—that's the love that gives all, is all—that's my love for you and the love I think you have for me. It is ours—that love. Oh, my sweetheart, how we will cherish it all the years through!"