"Yes, always. And Peter asked me to keep the presents carefully in my cedar chest, for we knew you would come back some day. And now——"
It was Peter's voice that came to them again, much nearer. Donald's arms fell away from the girl, but she raised her face quickly and kissed him. Her eyes were filled with tears.
"Peter is wondering why I do not answer. Please—please——"
In his indecision he bowed his face in his hands. It was with an effort that he shook himself free of temptation.
"I must tell you quickly, and you must understand," he said desperately. "The police are close after me again. That is why I was in the great swamp to the north—to get away from them. If I come back into Peter's life now it can only be for a few hours, and you know what it will mean—a fresh tragedy for him, a new grief, pain, disgrace, a black cloud of unhappiness over the paradise which you have made and can make for him. I have come back to see him, to look at him, to carry away a new picture of him in my heart. But he must not know. And if you love Peter—if you care a little for what is in the heart of his father—you will make it possible for me to look upon my boy. I will hide here, in the willows; and you two, there under the ash tree——"
"It is wrong," broke in Mona. "Oh, it is terribly wrong!"
"No, it is right," he persisted. "It will make me happy—to see him so near to me, hear his voice and know that life and God and you have been good to him. If I see Peter, child, if his hands touch me, if we are together again—it may cost me my life. For those things would hold me; I could not go away again after that, and the police are near, very near, and if they should catch me——"
The sag that came into his shoulders gave eloquence to the thing which he did not finish, and Mona's eyes burned with a fire which dried up her tears. "If I bring Peter down there, under the tree, will you promise not to go away until I have seen you again?" she asked.
"Yes, I promise that."
"Even if it is tomorrow, or the next day?"