Again the boy found his voice: "Ellen Culpepper, we've been going together seven years. Don't you think that's long enough?"
"We were just children then," she replied.
The boy leaned awkwardly toward her and their hands met on the rock, and he withdrew his as he asked, "Do you—do you?"
She bent toward him, and looked at him steadily as she nodded her head again and again. She rose to go, saying, "We mustn't stay here any longer."
He caught her hand to stop her, and said, "Ellen—Ellen, promise me just one thing." She looked her question. He cried, "That you won't forget—just that you won't forget."
She took his hand and stood before him as he sat, hoping to stay her. She answered: "Not as long as I live, John Barclay. Oh, not as long as I live." Then she exclaimed: "Now—" and her voice changed, "we just must go, John; Molly's gone, and it's getting late." She helped him limp over the rocks and up the steep road, but when they reached the level, she dropped his hand, and they walked home slowly, looking back at the moon, so that they might not overtake the other couple. Once or twice they stopped and sat on lumber piles in the street, talking of nothing, and it was after ten o'clock when they came to the gate. The girl looked anxiously up the walk toward the house. "They've come and gone," she said. She moved as if to go away.
"I wish you wouldn't go right in," he begged.
"Oh—I ought to," she replied. They were silent. The roar of the water over the dam came to them on the evening breeze. She put out her hand.
"Well," he sighed as he rested his lame foot, and started, "well—good-by."
She turned to go, and then swiftly stepped toward him, and kissed him, and ran gasping and laughing up the walk.