In the garden she paused. The stillness, the calm, the redolence of Spring, burgeoning into maidenly summer, brought back to her mind that similar time, six long years before, when she and Adam had met here among the flowers, for that brief time of joy.
The fire of love, kept so sacred by the vestal virgin spirit of her nature, burned upward in her cheeks, as warm, as ardent as ever, after these years of her lonely vigil.
But would he ever stand there again, in the garden? Would he ever more clasp her hands on the pickets of the gate? Or would he now prove disdainful, proud of his friendship with the new Governor, aloof and silent, as he had been since she sent him her letter?
No matter what might be, she so hungered to hear some word of his coming, some meager description of how he looked, some mere hearsay of how he bore himself, that it seemed as if she must consume herself with impatience on her way to her uncle’s.
In the dusk which was swiftly descending on the face of the world, she closed the gate behind her and started along the road, her face so pale and yet so eager, in her yearning, that it was almost luminous. She was presently conscious that some one, dimly visible, ahead, was rapidly approaching. She drew her shawl a little more closely about her face and quickened her footsteps, the sooner to pass this pedestrian.
A metallic tinkle came to her ears and made her heart give an extra bound, she knew not why. It had simply sounded like a scabbard, beating its small accompaniment to sturdy strides. She looked up, timidly, to see who it was that carried a sword into such a quiet part of Boston. Then she halted and suddenly placed her hand out, to the near-by fence, for a moment’s support.
The man was almost passing her by, where she stood. He halted. He made some odd little sound, and then he remained there, looking upon her, his hand coming involuntarily up to his heart.
Garde looked up in his face, without fear, but not without sadness, wistfully—with the inquiry of six long years in her steadfast eyes.
“Garde,” said Adam, in a voice she barely heard, “Garde—I have—come home. I never got your letter till to-night.”
She could not answer, for a moment.