SCENE.
As the priest emerged from the brushwood at the top of the path, he suddenly found himself face to face with the lady. She had come through the opening, and was standing outside waiting there, breathless, her hands clasped, and her eyes set in a fixed and eager gaze of vigilant outlook and of terrified apprehension. As she recognized the priest, her whole expression changed; her face flushed, her eyes grew moist with tears of joy, her lips quivered.
"Oh, thank God! thank God!" she cried. "Oh, how glad I am!"
The priest stood and looked at her in silence, although there was certainly every occasion for saying something. Finally he held out his hand, and she took it in hers, which were cold as ice, and tremulous.
"Poor child!" said the priest, "you have been too excited. But were you not afraid that it might be some one else?"
"Yes," said she; "so afraid that I lost all strength and could not get back. I thought I heard something like that little short laugh of yours that you give, but then it seemed imagination. So I waited, and if it had been an enemy he would have caught me. But I was right, after all," she ended, joyously. "It was your laugh—and you."
Again the priest stood in silence looking at her.
"It's worth going over there," said he at last, "to make a fellow-creature happy by coming back."
"Oh no," she said, "not for that. Nothing can compensate for the frightful, the terrible anxiety—nothing. But I will say no more. I am ready now for any fatigue or peril. My worst fear is over."
"Oh, it's all very well to be glad to see me," said the priest, with that short laugh to which the lady had referred, "but that's nothing to the gladness you'll feel when you see what I've brought back with me. You just wait and see—that's all!"