I was beside her. "Penelope," I said firmly, "there are some things which you and I must straighten out here and now."
"There is nothing to straighten out," she said. "Everything is settled. We are friends." Lifting a hand, she pointed over the plain. "What does that remind you of, David?"
"A little of the valley," I answered. Then I raised my hand too. "There are the mountains, Penelope, and just before them the ridge over which we rode that morning. Do you remember it? Do you remember how Nathan ran away over the trail, how you clung to me and called to me to save you? Home should be down there where you see the village. Do you remember——"
Penelope was looking from me, as though at the stone house, its roof just showing in the green of giant oaks.
Again she raised her hand. "And the barn, David—the big white barn—there!" she cried. Then she checked herself. She was very straight and very still. "I was forgetting," she said.
A step closer and I said: "You do remember, Penelope!"
"I must be going," she returned in a low voice, but she did not move.
I feared to speak now lest I should awaken her from the revery in which she seemed to have suddenly forgotten my existence.
"I must be going," she said again, and still she did not move.
She was looking across our valley! I knew that she saw it as on the morning when we rode in terror from the woods and it lay beneath us, a friendly land, in the broad day, under the kindly eye of God. Then I bent nearer her, an arm resting on the wall, my eyes on her averted face, patiently waiting until she should speak. And I could wait patiently now, for I believed that in the silence the memory of that day was fighting for me.