It was then Peter forgot Simon's warning, and there in the deepening gloom of the forest, with Mona close beside him, he told what it was in his heart to tell—all about the police, and the fight and the running away, and now the losing of his father.
"There isn't anyone else but my dad," he half sobbed at the end. "I even lost my dog. I haven't got anything now—an' I wish I was dead!"
"You don't," she reproved, her two hands holding one of his own tightly, "and you have got someone. You've got me. I'll take care of you. I will, Peter. I promise. And you can have Buddy, and all my pets—everything I've got. And—he will come back. Your father, I mean. All we got to do is wait." Her eyes were glowing at him in the dusk. "Why, your father is alive and he can come back," she said straight from the heart. "Mine can't. He is dead. And so is my mother."
An emotion new and strange swept over Peter—a flash of dawning manhood stirred to mysterious life by that note of something which had come from Mona's lips, a woman of the future whispering to him, chivalry calling, a boy's soul and a girl's rising for a moment above their years to point out the way to a new tomorrow.
Peter's heart grew warm again. He rose to his feet, and Mona stood beside him. In the darkness they were very close.
"I guess you're right," he said. "Dad won't stay away very long. And I—I'm sorry about your father and mother, Mona. And if Aleck Curry bothers you again, or kicks the dog——"
And so they went back through the dusk to Five Fingers, and this time it was Peter who held firmly to Mona's hand.