"And we have prayed a long time for your father to come back?"
He nodded wonderingly. "Yes, a long time."
She spoke slowly then, and her words were for Donald McRae and not for Peter.
"And if your father does not come, if you never see him again, your faith in the God we have prayed to for so long will be a little broken, will it not, Peter?"
She waited, holding her breath for fear even that sound might come between Peter's answer and the man in the bushes.
"He will come—some day—Mona."
"That was what he promised you—the day he sent you on alone to Five Fingers, and ran away from you? And you have always told me that next to your faith in God you believed in your father. You have never thought that he lied to you that day in the edge of the forest?"
He stared at her, speechless, and in that moment she faced the willows with a glow of triumph in her eyes.
"Down in the little church at Five Fingers Father Albanel has always taught us not to lie and to be true to our promise," she said, speaking directly at the willows. "Peter, if your father should break his faith, or I should break mine, it would be terrible. And that is what happened—in my vision—and it has frightened me." She rested her cheek against his arm so he could not see her face. "I was here—under the tree—when in this vision your father came. He was ragged and tired and sick—and so hungry he ate carrots I brought for the beavers. He had come just to look at you, Peter, but not to let you know. He said it would make you unhappy; that it was best for you that he should never come into your life again—and he made me promise not to tell you that he was here.
"And I promised. I did—I promised him I would be a traitor to you, after all the years we have waited for him, and prayed for him, and believed in him."