Before he could rise, almost before his big-shouldered body whirled in the chair toward her, her swift rush carried her across to him. She knelt at his knees, her thin arms clutching him with desperate strength. Denny Bolton felt her body shudder violently as he leaned over, dumb with bewilderment, and put his hands on her bowed head.
“Thank God,” he heard her whispering, “thank God––thank God!”
But far more swiftly than his half numbed brain could follow she was on her feet the next instant, tense and straight and lancelike in the gloom.
“Damn ’em,” she hissed. “Damn ’em––damn ’em––damn ’em!”
His fingers felt for and found a match and struck it. Her face was working convulsively, twisted with hate, both small fists lifted toward the huge house that crowned the opposite hill. It made him remember that first day when he had looked up, with the rabbit struggling in his arms, and found her standing there in the thicket before him, only now the fury that blazed in her eyes was not for him. There was a rough red welt across her forehead only half hidden by the tumbled hair that cascaded to her waist, torn loose from its scant fastenings by the whipping brush. And as he stood with the flame of the flickering match scorching his fingers, Denny Bolton remembered all the rest––he remembered the light that still burned unanswered in the window across the valley. He bowed his head.
“HOLD ME TIGHT––OH! HOLD ME TIGHTER! FOR THEY
FORGOT ME, TOO, DENNY; THEY FORGOT ME TOO!”