"Coming!" shouted Stone in reply. "I have an appointment at three o'clock with some of the brethren," he explained. "It must be fully that hour now; so I must hurry back. After all this excitement is over, I will talk further with you, Dudley, on the subject we were discussing. Will you return with me now?"
"No," replied Abner, throwing himself down at full length on the grass under the big elm, and drawing his hat over his face. "I'd rather stay here and commune with nature. I want to think over what you've been saying—and see if I can't find arguments to confute you."
CHAPTER XI.
LIGHT DAWNS
After Stone and Henry had disappeared through the woods, Dudley did not long ponder over the late discussion; he found in his environment too much food for other thought. He was on the same spot where, ten months before, he had first been alone with Abby Patterson. Yonder was the fallen log upon which she had sat toying with a spray of goldenrod, her white bonnet beside her, the soft wind playing with her brown hair, the sunlight through the overhanging boughs dancing over her head and hands, and making little patches of brightness on her lavender gown. The pungent odor of mint was in the air now as then when she had gathered some for her uncle's glass of toddy. The water sparkled and danced in the sunshine, trickling down the mossy rocks into the spring, and yonder in the cleft was the old gourd from which he had poured water on her hands.
Somewhere in his reading he had come across the story of the man who always "thanked God for the blessings that passed over his head." Often in the last few weeks he had had a dim consciousness that perhaps it was best for both that Abby had not yielded to his pleadings; but hitherto he had thrust the thought from him, as though it were disloyalty to Abby and to love. But though the recollection of Abby had still a tender, half-sad sweetness, Dudley's nature was too vigorous and buoyant long to give way to melancholy and vain regrets. As he lay there in the forest solitude, a renewed hopefulness filled his soul, and he felt that he, too, could thank God for the blessing that had passed him by. He got up, intending to return to the encampment, but a recollection of something Abby had said in their last interview, about his being blind to the good that fate was ready to bestow upon him, suddenly arrested him. "What could she have meant?" he wondered, as he seated himself on a stump, pulled his hat over his eyes, and, with a stick in his hand, idly traced lines and figures in the dust at his feet.
A slight noise presently made him look up, and there, standing under the big oak on the little prominence above him—just where she had stood that October afternoon, beckoning to him and Abby—was Betsy, again looking down upon him. She did not beckon this time; but as he looked up she turned quickly away, though not before he had caught the wistful, steadfast look in her eyes, and had seen the quick flush that covered her face.
Like lightning came the thought, "Was it Betsy whom Abby meant?" and as quickly the truth was flashed upon him with all the force of an electric shock. In an instant, old things had passed away, and a tumult of feeling stronger than anything he had ever known leaped into life. It was not alone the realization of Betsy's love, coming to him in that flash of intuition, that set his nerves tingling and made the hot blood pulse madly through his veins; but, with a rapture that approximated pain in its intensity, there rushed into his soul an answering love, tender, deep and fixed.
It is supposed by many people that man's love is founded upon uncertainty as to any answering passion in the woman's heart, and that a true woman never gives her love unsought; but there is more proof to warrant the contrary belief—that it is her love, unspoken, carefully hidden from all eyes, yet revealed by the mysterious telepathy of spiritual sympathy, that calls his love into being. A man of noble, generous nature is often thus kindled into responsiveness, and his love thus evoked is often the most reverent and the most lasting.