His feet seemed to stumble, and then suddenly he stopped, and a cry came to his lips. For he had come to the smooth little patch of green meadow where Mona had made the men of Five Fingers bury the scores of marauding porcupines they killed each year, and he saw here and there freshly made little mounds of soil. Near one of these, which was scarcely dried by a day's sun, was a spade. Eagerly he seized it in his hands. It was their spade, with its broken edge and the iron rod handle which Simon had put on it to replace the wooden one which porcupines had eaten away. Mona was in Five Fingers! She was alive—well—sleeping in her little room where he had visioned her at prayer every night of his life!
He took off his pack and dropped it near the freshly made mound. Then he went on, and stopped under Mona's window.
It was partly open. He could hear the soft flutter of a curtain in the breath of wind that came up from the shore. Almost afraid to break the stillness he called her name in a low voice.
"Mona!"
The curtain fluttered back at him. It seemed to be laughing at him, seemed to be signaling to him like a hand from the window.
Then he saw on their nails against the log wall the long bamboo poles which Pierre Gourdon used in his fishing. A hundred times when he had come in from the woods late at night he had tapped at Mona's window with one of these poles, and she had thrust out her head to blow him down a kiss and say good night. And now, with two hearts seeming to beat in his breast in place of one, he seized one of the poles and gently tapped the old signal on the window-pane. And all at once the curtain ceased its fluttering and he could hear the two hearts pounding mightily against his ribs.
He tapped again—tap-tap-tappety-tap! and stepped back into the deep shadow that hung around the edge of the Gourdon cabin in a heavy fringe.
Someone came to the window. He knew it—yet he could not see straight up above his head. He held himself back, waiting for some response to his signal. In a moment he would step out in the moonlight, and then——
He heard the curtain fluttering again. Sound came from her room. It continued for a few moments, and ceased with the quiet opening of a door. Then he heard footsteps, quick, light, almost frightened footsteps, and a slim figure came around the end of Pierre Gourdon's cabin and stood white-faced and trembling in the moonlight.
It was Mona—Mona as he had left her an hour ago—yesterday—two years ago—unchanged—except that she seemed taller to him, more beautiful. She had thrown a long cloak about her and he could see her hand clutching it at the throat as her wide eyes strained to solve the mystery which the misty chaos of the moonlight was hiding from her. For a space he seemed powerless to move. Then he tried to speak as he revealed himself, ragged and torn and bronzed to Indian darkness by his long fight through the wilderness, but it was only an incoherent cry that stumbled on his lips. Mona saw him. For an instant she swayed like a tall flower, with the whiteness of lily petals in her face as he went to her. And then she gave a cry that even Pierre Gourdon might have heard if he had not slept so deeply—and Peter's arms closed about her.