Elinor's pulse beat felt a thrill. A sudden sense of the sweetness of the day and of a joy unlike any other joy of her life possessed her.
Down on the bridge they stopped to watch the sunlit waters of the Walnut rippling below them.
“Are we the same two who crept up on this bridge, wet, and muddy and tired, and scared one stormy October night eighteen months ago?” Elinor asked.
“I've had no reincarnation that I know of,” Vic replied.
“I have,” Elinor declared, and Vic thought of Burgess.
Up the narrow hidden glen they made their way, clambering about broken ledges, crossing and recrossing the little stream, hugging the dry footing under overhanging rock shelves, laughing at missteps and rejoicing in the springtime joy, until they came suddenly upon a grassy open space, cliff-walled and hidden, even from the rest of the glen. At the farther end was the low doorway-like entrance to the cave. The song-birds were twittering in the trees above them, the waters of the little stream gurgled at their feet, the woodsy odor of growing things was in the air, and all the little glen was restful and quiet.
“Isn't it beautiful and romantic—and everything nice?” Elinor cried. “I don't mind this sentence to hard service. It is worth it. Do you mind the loss of time, Victor?”
“I counted it gain to be here with you, even in the storm and terror. How can this be loss?” he answered her. His voice was low and musical.
Elinor looked up quickly. And quickly as the thing had come to Victor Burleigh on the west bluff above the old Kickapoo Corral two Octobers ago, so to Elinor Wream came the vision of what the love of such a man would be to the woman who could win it.
“Do you really mean it, Victor? Was n't I a lump of lead? A dead weight to your strength that night? You have never once spoken of it.”