Had he kept the kiss on his lips with which he had parted from her,—that kiss which, to him at least, had been one of betrothal?
The short day was nearly dead. In the gloom of the darkening twilight, Swan stood leaning against the old tree and looking up the path where the figure had disappeared, doubting whether a vision had deluded his senses or not.
Was Dorcas indeed separated from him? Was there no bringing back the sweet, olden time of love to her? She had seemed to shrink from him and fade out of sight. Could she never indeed love him again?
It was getting dark. But for the great, broad moon, that just then shone out from behind the Ridge Hill, he would not have seen another figure coming down the path from the house. Swan felt as if he had lived a long time in the last half-hour.
A woman walked cautiously towards him, apparently proceeding to the well. She stooped a little, and a wooden hoop round her person supported a pail on each side, which she had evidently come to fill. It was no angel that came to trouble the fountain to-night. She pulled down the chained bucket with a strong, heavy sweep, and the beam rose high in the air, with the stone securely fastened to the end. While she drew up and poured the water into the pails, she looked several times covertly at the stranger. The stranger, on his part, scanned her as closely. She belonged to the house, he thought. Probably she had come to live on the Fox farm at the death of the old people,—to take care of Dorcas, possibly. Again he scanned her curiously.
The face was an ordinary one. A farmer's wife, even of the well-to-do, fore-handed sort, had many cares, and often heavy labors. Fifty years ago, inventive science had given no assistance to domestic labor, and all household work was done in the hardest manner. This woman might have had her day of being good-looking, possibly. But the face, even by moonlight, was now swarthy with exposure; the once round arm was dark and sinewy; and the plainly parted hair was confined and concealed by a blue-and-white handkerchief knotted under her chin. The forehead was freely lined; and the lips opened, when they did open, on dark, unfrequent teeth. These observations Swan made as he moved forward to speak to her; for there was no special expressiveness or animation to relieve the literal stamp of her features.
"Can you tell me, Madam,—hem!—who lives now on this place? It used to belong to Colonel Fox, I think."
He called her "Madam" at a venture, though she might, for all he could see, be a "help" on the farm. But it wasn't Cely, nor yet Dinah.
At the sound of his voice the woman's whole expression changed. Her quick eyes fell back into a look of dreamy inquiry and softness. She dropped her pails to the ground, and stood, fenced in by the hoop, like a statue of bewilderment,—if such a statue could be carved.
Was his face transfigured in the moonlight, as she slowly gathered up old memories, and compared the form before her with the painted shadows of the past? She answered not a word, but clasped her hands tightly together, and bent her head to listen again to the voice.