She was seated close under the shadowy brow of the hill, with her face away from me, and her head thrown back, leaning against something.
A lovely picture she had been that first night by the gate-house tower; now again I paused, rapt by the grace of her languid, lissome body, by the pale abstraction of her face—against the ancient gloom of the oratory of St. Tarw!
There was not the slightest doubt that this had been the devotional cell of the saint. Here stood the rude arch, still discernible though one or two of its stones had been displaced and the rest were mantled in moss and grass grown downward from above. The projection beside the door, where her head leaned, had surely once upon a time been the support of a holy shrine. These scattered rocky benches: on them had sat the small, dark, half-savage hill-folk, the strange congregations of the venerable man.
No, I would not rouse her from that mood of thought or vacancy; I would be still until she turned and looked at me. So minutes passed, while her image impressed itself in my mind, in my very heart of hearts. While I stood there in the grass, awaiting the first movement of her weary head, even breathing softly that she might not be disturbed, for the first time I dared to say to myself, bold and unafraid, “I love her.”
She did quicken from her inanimate pose, she did turn her head and see me. She rose swiftly; already I had come very near to her.
When she attempted to speak, her voice faltered. “So—so you found me?”
“Yes, Paula,” I said.
“I was waiting. I heard—”
My own queer voice filled the pause. “You don’t mean that—you were waiting—for me?”
“Yes.”