Darragh glanced across the brook at the hatchery. It was only a few yards away. He nodded and started for the veranda:
"That'll be all right," he said. "Nobody is coming here to bother her.
… And don't let her leave, Ralph, till I get back——"
"Very well, sir. But suppose she takes it into her head to leave——"
Darragh called back, gaily: "She can't: she hasn't any clothes!" And away he strode in the gorgeous sunshine of a magnificent autumn day, all the clean and vigorous youth of him afire in anticipation of a reunion which the letter from his lady-love had transfigured into a tryst.
For, in that amazing courtship of a single day, he never dreamed that he had won the heart of that sad, white-faced, hungry child in rags — silken tatters still stained with the blood of massacre, — the very soles of her shoes still charred by the embers of her own home.
Yes, that is what must have happened in a single day and evening. Life passes swiftly during such periods. Minutes lengthen into days; hours into years. The soul finds itself.
Then mind and heart become twin prophets, — clairvoyant concerning what hides behind the veil; comprehending the divine clair-audience what the Three Sisters whisper there — hearing even the whirr of the spindle — the very snipping of the Eternal Shears!
* * * * *
The soul finds itself; the mind knows itself; the heart perfectly understands.
He had not spoken to this young girl of love. The blood of friends and servants was still rusty on her skirt's ragged hem.