"It isn't true—it isn't true," she said over and over again to herself. She kept tugging and pulling till by sheer strength she forced the boat into the shallow water among the tall arrowhead along the margin of the shore.
She stepped out on the landing stones, drew up the boat, then made her way across the meadow to the shade of the tall spreading willows. Here she threw herself down, pressing her face into the cool lush grass, and relived in thought that early morning hour she had spent alone with him, only a few weeks ago, on the misty lake among the opening water lilies.
She had been awakened that morning in mid-July by hearing him singing softly beneath her open window that same song which seven years ago made such an unaccountable impression on her child's heart. He had often in jest threatened to repeat the episode of the serenade, but she never realized that beneath the jest there was any deeper meaning. Now she was aware of that meaning in her every fibre, physical and spiritual.
"Aileen Mavoureen, the gray dawn is breaking—"
And hearing that, realizing that the voice was calling for her alone in all the world, she rose; dressed herself quickly; beckoned joyously to him from the window; noiselessly made her way down the back stairs; softly unbolted the kitchen porch door—
He was there with hands outstretched for hers; she placed them in his, and again, in remembrance of their fun and frolic seven years before, he raced with her down the slate-laid garden walk, across the lawn to the boat house where his own boat lay moored.
It was four o'clock on that warm midsummer morning. The mists lay light but impenetrable on the surface of the lake. The lilies were still closed.
They spoke but little.
"I knew no one could hear me—they all sleep on the other side, don't they?"
"Yes, all except the boy, and he sleeps like a log—Tave has to wake him every morning; alarm clocks are no good."