She scrambled down the bank and went to him.
"You are sorry we're going, aren't you, Davey?" she asked.
He nodded, finding he could not speak.
The gloom of the forest was closing round them, the sunset dying. She sighed and slipped her hand into his.
After a few moments, as he said nothing, she spoke again.
"It'll be all changed, I suppose, when father and I come back," she said. "We will come back, by and by, sometime, you know, father says. We'll come to see Steve, perhaps. But we'll be grown up ... quite, you and I, Davey. You'll be married, and I—"
"What?"
Davey had wakened.
"I was saying, we'll be grown-up and married, perhaps by the time we see each other again," Deirdre murmured. "None of the times'll come again like the ones when we went home on Lass, or in the spring-cart, or walked, and chased wallies and went after birds' nests. I wish they could! I wish I could be just ten when I come back and give you a race down the road, Davey."
Her voice ran on quickly, but Davey's mind stuck on her first words.