It was dark in the thick of the underbrush; dark and velvety quiet, save for the little moon-lit patch of a clearing where he waited. He stood there in the middle of that spot of light and heard her coming long before she reached him––long before he could see her he heard her scurrying feet and the whip of bushes against her skirt.
But when she burst through the fringe of brush he had no time to move or speak, or more than lift his arms before her swift rush carried her to him. When her hands flashed up about his neck and her damp mouth went searching softly across his face and he strained her nearer and even nearer to him, he felt her slim body quivering just as it had trembled that other night when she had raced across the valley to him––the night when Judge Maynard’s invitation had failed to come. After a time he made out the words that were tumbling from her lips, all incoherent with half hysterical bits of sobs, and he realized, too, that her words were like that of that other night.
“Denny––Denny,” she murmured, her small, gold-crowned head buried in his shoulder. “I’m here––I’ve come––just as soon as I could; Oh, I’ve been afraid! I knew you’d come, too––I knew you would tonight! I was sure of it––even when I was sure that you wouldn’t.”
For a long time he was silent, because dry lips refused to frame the words he would have spoken. 303 Minutes he stood and held her against him until the rise and fall of her narrow shoulders grew quieter, before he lifted one hand and held her damp face away, that he might look into it. And gazing back at him, in spite of all the wordless wonder of her which she saw glowing in his eyes, she read, too, the grave perplexity of him.
“Why––you––you must have known I’d come,” he said, his voice ponderously grave. “I––I told you so. I left word for you that I would be back––as soon as I could come.”
He felt her slim body slacken––saw the lightning change flash over her face which always heralded that bewildering swift change of mood. It wiped out all the tenseness of lip and line.
There in the white light in spite of the shadows of her lashes which turned violet eyes to great pools of satin shadow, he caught the flare of mischief behind half-closed lids, before she tilted her head back and laughed softly, with utter joyous abandon straight up into his face.
“He––he didn’t deliver it,” she stated naively. “It wasn’t his fault entirely, though, Denny––although I did give him lots of chances, at first anyway. I almost made him tell––but he––he’s stubborn.”
She stopped and laughed again––giggled shamelessly as she remembered. But her eyes grew grave once more.