"Your wife," she whispered, touching his shoulder gently with her lips.
"Yes, I'm glad," he said. "So glad that I'm—afraid."
"Then—if you are glad—please kiss me again."
He stood up, and drew her to him, and held her face between his hands as he kissed her red lips; and after that he kissed her shining hair again and again, and when he let her go her eyes were a glory of happiness.
"And you will never run away from me again?" she demanded, holding him at arm's length. "Never?"
"Never!"
"Then—I want nothing more in this life," she said, nestling against him again. "Only you, for ever and ever."
Jolly Roger made no answer, but held her a long time in his arms, with the soft beating of her heart against him, and listened to the twitter and song of nesting and mating things about them. In this silence she lay content, until Peter—growing restless—started quietly into the golden depths of the forest.
It was Pied-Bot's going, cautious and soft-footed, as if danger and menace might lurk just ahead of him, that brought another look into McKay's eyes as Nada's hand crept to his cheek, and rested there.
"You love me—very much?"