The girl looked at him reproachfully, “You is not please’ with me, March—why?”
The question puzzled the youth. He certainly was displeased, but he could not make up his mind to say that he was so because Mary had not fallen into a state of violent grief at the prospect of a separation. But the anxious gaze of Mary’s truthful blue eyes was too much for him—he suddenly grasped both her hands, and, kissing her forehead, said—
“Mary dear, I’m not displeased. I’m only sorry, and sad, and annoyed, and miserable—very miserable—I can scarcely tell why. I suppose I’m not well, or I’m cross, or something or other. But this I know, Mary, Dick has invited me to come back to see him next year, and I certainly shall come if life and limb hold out till then.”
Mary’s eyes filled with tears, and as she smiled through them, March, being very near her face, beheld in each eye an excessively miniature portrait of himself gazing out at him lovingly.
“Perhaps!” faltered Mary, “you no want for come when it be nixt year.”
Poor March was overwhelmed again, absolutely disgusted, that she could entertain a doubt upon that point!
“We shall see,” he cried with a sudden impulse, pressing his lips again to her forehead. “May the Great Spirit bless and keep you! Good-bye, Mary—till next spring.”
March burst away from her, rushed out of the cave in a tumult of conflicting feelings and great resolves, and despite a little stiffness that still remained to remind him of his late accident, flung himself into the saddle with a bound that would have done credit to the Wild Man himself, and galloped down the rocky gorge at a pace that threatened a sudden and total smash to horse and man. Had any of his old comrades or friends witnessed that burst, they would certainly have said that March Marston was mad—madder, perhaps, than the most obstreperous March hare that ever marched madly through the wild regions of insanity.