Soon he saw her coming down the path, the gnarled and rugged trunks and spreading boughs building a sun-splashed colonnade towards the pool. Jeffray went down through the tall grass and met the girl at the edge of the wood.
They did not touch each other’s hands, but stood quite close together, smiling shyly like a pair of children. Neither seemed to have a single word to say for the moment. It was all silent intuition with them, a glance, a sense of nearness, a rush of blood to the face. They turned and walked towards the great stone by the pool. Bess sat down there. Richard found himself beside her, a foot of the bare rock between them.
The girl’s eyes were searching his face.
“You look quite brown and strong,” she said.
“Yes, I am strong again,” he answered her.
“Have you ridden here—before?”
“The two past evenings. I had a feeling that I should find you to-night.”
“Dan went out into the woods, and so—I came.”
They sat in silence a moment, looking at each other, and hearing no sound save the occasional plash of a fish leaping in the pool. Bess’s fingers were feeling for the brooch at her bosom. She unpinned it, and, holding it in her palm, held it out to Jeffray with a smile.
“Dan has given me this,” she said.