FullReads

“There was no reason why I should not come,” he said, “since you did not forbid me.”

At sunset they returned to the cabin. Lennox led his rather sorry-looking animal by the bridle, and trusting to its meekness of aspect, devoted his attention wholly to his companion.

“Thet’s Nath Dunbar’s critter,” commented “Mis'” Harney, standing at the door. “They’ve powerful poor ‘commodations fur boardin’, but I reckon Nath must ‘a’ tuk him in.”

“Then,” said Rebecca, learning that this was the case, “then you have seen Lodusky.”

But he had not seen Lodusky, it seemed. She had not been at home when he arrived, and he had only remained in the house long enough to make necessary arrangements before leaving it to go in search of his friends.

The bare, rough-walled room was very cheery that night. Lennox brought with him the gossip of the great world, to which he gave an air of freshness and spice that rendered it very acceptable to the temporary hermits. Outside, the moon shone with a light as clear as day, though softer, and the tender night breezes stirred the pine-tops and nestled among the laurels; inside, by the beautiful barbarous light of the flaring pine-knots on the hearth, two talkers, at least, found the hours fly swiftly.

When these two bade each other good-night it was only natural that they should reach the point toward which they had been veering for twelve months.

Miss Thorne remained in the room, drawing nearer the fire with an amiable little shiver, well excused by the mountain coolness, but Rebecca was beguiled into stepping out into the moonlight The brightness of the moon and the blackness of the shadows cast by trees and rocks and undergrowth, seemed somehow to heighten the effect of the intense and utter stillness reigning around them,–even the occasional distant cry of some wandering wild creature marked, rather than broke in upon, the silence. Rebecca’s glance about her was half nervous.

“It is very beautiful,” she said, “and it moves one strongly; but I am not sure that it is not, in some of one’s moods, just a little oppressive.”

It is possible Lennox did not hear her. He was looking down at her with eager eyes. Suddenly he had caught her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“You know why I am here, Rebecca,” he said. “Surely, all my hoping is not vain?”

She looked pale and a little startled; but she lifted her face and did not draw herself away.

“Is it?” he asked again. “Have I come on a hopeless errand?”

“No,” she answered. “You have not.”

His words came freely enough then and with fire. When Rebecca reentered the cabin her large eyes shone in her small, sweet face, and her lips wore a charming curve.

Miss Thorne turned in her chair to look at her and was betrayed into a smile.

“Mr. Lennox has gone, of course,” she said.

“Yes.”

Then, after a brief silence, in which Rebecca pushed the pine-knots with her foot, the elder lady spoke again.

“Don’t you think you may as well tell me about it, Beck, my child?” she said.

Beck looked down and shook her head with very charming gravity.

“Why should I?” she asked. “When–when you know.”

Lennox rode his mildly disposed but violently gaited steed homeward in that reposeful state of bliss known only to accepted lovers. He had plucked his flower at last; he was no longer one of the many; he was ecstatically content. Uncertainty had no charm for him, and he was by no means the first discoverer of the subtle fineness her admirers found so difficult to describe in Miss Noble. Granted that she was not a beauty, judged rigidly, still he had found in her soft, clear eye, in her color, her charming voice, even in her little gestures, something which reached him as an artist and touched him as a man.

“One cannot exactly account for other women’s paling before her,” he said to himself; “but they do–and lose significance.” And then he laughed tenderly. At this moment, it was true, every other thing on earth paled and lost significance.