He waited, jaws set, while she seated herself at a table and wrote out the pass.
"Thank you," he said, in such a rage that he could scarcely control his voice.
She may not have heard him; she sat rigid at the table, looking very hard into space—sat motionless as he took a curt leave of her, never turning her head—listened to his tread as he strode off through the ferns, then laid her brow between snowy hands which matched the face that trembled in them.
As for him, he swung away along the path by which he had come, unstrung by turns, by turns violently desiring her unhappiness, and again anticipating approaching freedom with reckless satisfaction.
Then a strange buoyancy came over him as he arrived in sight of the gate, where the red-haired girl sat on a camp stool, yawning and knitting a silk necktie—for eventualities, perhaps; perhaps for herself, Lord knows. She lifted her grey eyes as he came swinging up—deep, clear, grey eyes that met his and presently seemed ready to answer his. So his eyes asked; and, after a long interval, came the reply, as though she had unconsciously been waiting a long, long while for the question.
"I suppose you will wish to keep this," he said in a low voice, offering her the pass. "You will probably desire to preserve it under lock and key."
She rose to her slender height, took it in her childish hands, hesitated, then, looking up at him, slowly tore the pass to fragments and loosed them from her palm into the current of the south wind blowing.
"That does not matter," she said, "if you are going to love me."
There was a moment's silence, then she held out her left hand. He took it; with her right hand, standing on tiptoe, she reached up and unbarred the gates. And they passed out together into the infernal splendour of the sunset forest.