The father swept his hat from his head and bent down in the saddle, and gazed yearningly into the sleeping child's cherubic face. Then he reached lower and kissed the pretty forehead tenderly.
"She'll be getting big when I see her again," he said, in a voice that was not quite steady.
Then a passionate light flooded his eyes as he looked into the face of his girl wife.
"For God's sake care for her, Nita," he cried. "She's ours—and she's all we've got. Here, kiss me, dear. I can't stop another moment, or—or I'll make a fool of myself."
The girl turned her face up and the man's passionate kisses were given across the small atom which was the pledge of their early love. Then Steve straightened up in the saddle and replaced his hat. A moment later he had vanished within the woods through which he must pass on his way to Ian Ross and his wife, to whom he desired to convey his final word of thanks.
Nita stood silent, dry-eyed gazing after him. He was gone, and she knew she would not see him again for two years.
The woodland shadows were lengthening. The delicate green of the trees had lost something of its brightness. Already the distance was taking on that softened hue which denotes the dying efforts of daylight.
Nita was passing rapidly over the footpath which would take her to her new home. She was alone with her child in her arms, and carrying a small bundle. Her violet eyes were widely serious, the pallor of her pretty cheeks was unchanged. But whatever the emotions that inspired these things she lacked all those outward signs of feeling which few women, under similar circumstances, could have resisted. There were no tears. Yet her brows were puckered threateningly. She was absorbed, deeply absorbed, but it was hardly with the absorption of blind grief.
She paused abruptly. The startled look in her eyes displayed real apprehension. The sound of someone or something moving in the low-growing scrub beside her had stirred her to a physical fear of woodland solitudes she had never been able to conquer.