Their little differences made up, Rick Jeffreys spent a happy hour with Barbara, stayed until the golden haze of sunset was stealing soft and slow over the shadows of the sombre pine forest and the azure radiance of the sky; then he had an appointment to meet an old comrade in Eden City, and he tore himself reluctantly away from the Saucel Ranch—ready at the last moment to throw over his engagement and stay, if Barbara had urged him.
The shades of evening had closed when Barbara, having watched her stalwart lover out of sight, went into the kitchen, on domestic cares intent. It was very dark there, and she set the outer-door, which led into the court-yard, wide open to let in such light as there was, while she put a fresh log on the low wood fire, and prepared to light the lamp and make herself some tea. She was thus engaged when she heard a step outside the open door—not the quick, confident step of a friendly visitor, but a hurried yet hesitating tread—a tread that suggested skulking and hanging about.
It was a late hour for tramps, and Barbara, brave woman though she was, looked round a little anxiously, to see who the stranger might be. She had but just caught a glimpse of an evidently tired and travel-worn wayfarer—a haggard, dishevelled figure—when he spoke, raising his hat as he did so, with the courteous gesture of a gentleman. "Excuse me, madam, but can you give me a cup of water and a piece of bread, and shelter for an hour?"
As he spoke, Barbara glanced up with a start. That voice, it struck upon her ear like an echo from the past. And even in the deepening twilight there seemed to be something familiar in the outlines of face and form.
"Who—who are you?" she faltered.
It was his turn to start as he heard her voice, and gazed with sudden searching into her pale face in the gloaming. Then she knew him—knew, and yet could hardly believe her eyes, her ears, her instincts—could not realize that in this rough, disordered, unkempt figure, with the torn clothes and the dark stains on his ragged sleeve, she saw the handsome, graceful, debonair lover of her girlhood, the recreant bridegroom who had left her on the very threshold of the altar!
"Oliver!" she said, in a low and trembling tone.
And as the last faint glimmer of the dying day rested on her face he knew her too.
"Barbara!" he ejaculated, as if with a gasp, fairly staggered by the recognition. "Is it—can it be—Barbara?"
"Am I so changed?" she rejoined, with a touch of bitterness in her tone.