"'Let me tell you when I come back,' he said. 'You'll wait for me?' stoopin' down an' kissin' me.
"I noticed that, for he did not like to kiss,—Derrick. An' his lips were hot an' dry.
"'Yes, I'll wait, my son,' I said. 'Thee'll not be gone long?'
"He did not answer that, but kissed me again, an' went out quickly.
"I sat an' waited long that night, an' searched till mornin'. There's been a many nights an' days since, but I've never found him. The Hallets all went that night, an' I heerd Derrick went as waiter-boy, so's to get across seas. It's twenty years now. But I think he'll come,"—looking up with a laugh.
Miss Defourchet started; where had she known this woman? The sudden flicker of a smile, followed by a quick contraction of the eyelids and mouth, was peculiar and curiously sensitive and sad; somewhere, in a picture maybe, she had seen the same.
Doctor Dennis, who had waited purposely, came out now on the stoop. Miss Defourchet looked up. The darkness had gathered while they stood there; the pine woods, close at the right, began to lower distant and shapeless; now and then the wind flapped a raw dash of rain in their faces, and then was suddenly still. Behind them, two or three tallow candles, just lighted in the store, sputtered dismal circles of dingy glare in the damp fog; in front, a vague slope of wet night, in which she knew lay the road and the salt marshes; and far beyond, distinct, the sea-line next the sky, a great yellow phosphorescent belt, apparently higher than their heads. Nearer, unseen, the night-tide was sent in: it came with a regular muffled throb that shook the ground. Doctor Dennis went down, and groped about his horse, adjusting the harness.
"The poor beast is soaked to the marrow: it's a dull night: d'ye hear how full the air is of noises?"
"It be the sea makin' ready," said Joe, in a whisper, as if it were a sentient thing and could hear. He touched the old woman on the arm and beckoned her inside to one of the candles.
"There be a scrap of a letter come for you; but keep quiet. Ben Van Note's scrawl of a handwrite, think."