The wire fencing ceased, but the road became narrower, the walls of trees darker, closer together, though the soil under foot grew firmer. They had to stop every few minutes to rest. Lois saw ever before her the one objective point—a dimly lighted room, with Justin stretched out upon the bed, dying, while she could not get there. Hope was crushed out. Death and ruin—that was the end.
The end! There are paths one walks along in life that seem only to end in the barrier of a stone wall, with “No thoroughfare” written on it; there is no way beyond. Yet, when one gets close to that insurmountable, impenetrable barrier, how often there is seen to be some hitherto unnoticed aperture, some little postern-gate by which one can pass on into the highroad!
“Hark!” said Dosia suddenly, standing still. The sound of a voice trolling drunkenly made itself heard, came nearer, while the women stood terrified. The thing they had both unspeakably dreaded had happened; the moonlight brought into view the unmistakable figure of a tramp, with a bundle swung upon his shoulder. No terror of the future could compare with this one, that neared them with the seconds, swaying unsteadily from side to side of the road, as the tipsy voice alternately muttered and roared the reiterated words:
“For I have come from Pad-dy land,
The land—I do adore!”
They had fled, crouching into the bushes at the edge of the path, and he passed with his eyes on the ground, or he must have seen—a blotched, dark-visaged, leering creature, living in an insane world of his own. They waited until he was far out of sight before creeping, all of a tremble, from their shelter, only to hear another footfall unexpectedly near—the pad, pad, pad of a runner, a tall figure as one saw it through the lights and shadows under the trees, capless and coatless, with sleeves rolled up, arms bent at the elbows, and head held forward. Suddenly the pace slackened, stopped.
“Great heavens!” said the voice of Bailey Girard.
“Oh, it’s you, it’s you!” cried Dosia, running to him with an ineffable, revealing gesture, a lovely motion of her upflinging arms, a passion of joy in the face upraised to his, that called forth an instantly flashing, all-embracing light in his.
In that moment there was an acknowledgment in each of an intimacy that went back of all words, back of all action. The arms that upheld her gripped her close to him as one who defends his own as he said tensely:
“That beast ahead, did he touch you?”
“Oh, no; he didn’t see us. We hid!” She tried to explain in hurrying, disconnected sentences. “I’ve been longing and praying for you to come! I tried to let you know before we started, and you weren’t there. Lois was half crazy about Justin. Come to her now! She wanted to see Mr. Larue, and he was gone. We’ve walked from Collingswood; we have the baby with us.”