I came to it well before the time, and found it to be just as the note described. I had kept well away from the wood, and I came easily to the old disused chalk-pit, which had in it a small pond of stagnant water, formed by the rains of many seasons. Half-way up one side of it was the little hut to which Debora had referred. I made my way to it at once. Sitting down on an old bench, I looked through the open door, and so could command the way by which she would come.
The time drew on, and still I saw nothing of her. I was beginning to think that some one had discovered that she had communicated with me, or else that, after all, this might be a trap set for me. I blamed myself that I was here in this lonely place without a weapon. And then suddenly, far off, I saw what it was that had delayed her.
The evening was very still and very fine; I could see a long way. Presently, in the distance, I made out a figure walking backwards and forwards on the edge of the wood; after quite a long time I made it out to be the doctor. I knew in a moment that the man stood as a barrier between the girl in the house and me in the hut, and that while he kept unconscious guard there it was impossible for us to meet. Yet I was as helpless as she must be, and I could only wait until it pleased the man to go back to the house.
He must have walked there backwards and forwards for more than half an hour before I suddenly saw him in the clear light stop, and snap the fingers of his uninjured hand together, with the action of a man coming to a sudden quick resolution; then he turned, and went off with long strides in the direction of the house. I wondered what he was going to do.
I endured another period of waiting that seemed interminable; and then I saw her coming quickly through the wood and down towards the chalk-pit. She skirted the edge of it, and came on quickly towards where I stood in the doorway of the hut waiting for her. After her declaration in the house, in the presence of the two men, I could not know in what mood she came, and I was puzzled how I should greet her. About that, however, I need not have thought at all, for the miracle of it was that she came straight towards me, with her eyes shining, and her hands stretched out towards me, so that in the most wonderful way, and yet in a way most natural, I took her suddenly in my arms. And she broke at once into a torrent of prayers and excuses.
"Oh, my dear! my dear! I was so afraid you would not meet me. I have not deserved that you should; it might have happened that you would not understand, and would believe that all the hateful things I said were meant by me. You didn't believe that, did you?"
"Well—yes, I did," I stammered. "What else could I believe?"
"Don't you understand that I should have had no chance at all with those men, unless I had thrown them off their guard? I hated myself afterwards, when they laughed and joked about you; I could have killed them. Then I made up my mind that I must send and find you."
"It was wonderful that the boy should know me so easily," I answered. "How did you describe me?"
She hung her head, and I saw the colour mount from neck to brow. "I told the boy to look for a man with the mark of a blow across his face," she whispered; and then, before I could prevent her, even had I wished, she had put her arms about my neck and had drawn my head down, and was kissing me passionately on the mark itself. "That's to heal it—and that—and that—and that!" she whispered.