"Paddy?" He thought she had said it to remind him of that May night; he was remembering it now. "Are you that little girl?"
"Yes."
"The little girl who broke the lantern?"
"Yes," said Judith proudly.
"And had such long black legs, and went scuttling across the lawn, and screaming out to me—that funny little girl?"
"But I did break the lantern," said Judith.
All the bravest stories that she had made up in the dark to put herself to sleep with at night, all the perilous adventures of land and sea, camp fire or pirate ship, began with the breaking of that lantern, and the boy she rescued had been her companion upon them, her brushwood boy, her own boy. She had found him at last, and he was laughing—laughing at her.
"Sure you did. As if I couldn't have broken away from a bunch of fool kids, without being doped with the smell of kerosene, and yelled at by another fool kid. Sure you broke the lantern. How mad I was."
"You didn't remember." It was not a joke any longer now, but a tragedy, and Judith felt overwhelmed by it, alone in the world. "You forgot, and I—remembered."
The brown eyes and the gray met in one last long look and when the brown eyes saw the hurt in Judith's, the laughter died out of them. Again they seemed to be growing nearer and nearer to hers, but this time Judith was not afraid, she was glad.