"No more can I, sweetheart. I hadn't decided."
She puckered her brows in the darkness with genuine distress. Women worry more than men over past intangibilities. He smiled comfortably to himself, for in his grasp he held, unresisting, the dearest little hand in the world. Outside, the ever-charming, ever-mysterious night of the Hills was stealing here and there in sighs and silences. From the darkness came the high sweet tenor of Bert Leslie's voice in the words of a song:
"A Sailor to the Sea, a Hunter to the Pines,
And Sea and Pines alike to joy the Rover,
The Wood-smells to the nostrils of the Lover of the Trail,
And Hearts to Hearts the whole World over!"
Through and through the words of the song, like a fine silver wire through richer cloth of gold, twined the long-drawn, tremulous notes of the white-throated sparrow, the nightingale of the North.
"The dear old Hills," he murmured tenderly. "We must come back to them often, sweetheart."
"I wish, I wish I knew!" she cried, holding his hand tighter.
"Knew what?" he asked, surprised.