"I will go away in a moment," he said gently, as if asking forgiveness. "I never thought you would feel it so."
"No, no!" said the girl anxiously. "It wasn't that…."
"Get into bed again and cover yourself up, or you'll be cold. And I'll sit beside you a little, just while it's dark, and then go again."
Shy and confused, she sprang into bed and drew the clothes over her.
He looked at her a moment. Then pulling up a chair beside the bed, he sat down, resting one elbow on the pillow.
"Pansy, why do you hide your eyes? Are you afraid? Is it because I am here? Give me your hand. Who was it that was to press your hand? Do you remember?
"Didn't you know I was coming? Hasn't the cuckoo been saying it all
the spring? Didn't the daisies tell you he was to come this summer?
And now, now that I am here, you look at me as if I were a stranger.
Is it because it has come true so suddenly?"
She pressed his hand. "Oh, you are not like the others."
"And how should I be? You did not care for them. The one you have been waiting for—was he to be like them? Answer, dark-eyed Pansy-flower."
She clasped his wrist with both her hands, and drew herself closer to him.