e.

And even as she watched Denny Bolton swung around from a long
contemplation of that half-torn-down building to peer up at his own
dark place on the hill--to peer straight back into the eyes of the
girl whom he could not even see.

She saw the bewilderment in that big body's poise; even at that
distance she sensed his dumb, numbed uncomprehension. From bare white
throat to the mass of tumbled hair that clustered across her forehead
the blood came storming up into her face; and with the coming of that
which set the pulses pounding in her temples and brought an
unaccountable ache to her throat, all the doubt which had squired her
that day slipped away.

Before he had had time to turn back again she had flown on mad feet
into the kitchen, swept the lamp from its bracket on the wall with
heedless haste and raced back to that front window. And she placed it
there behind a half-drawn shade--that old signal which they had agreed
upon without one spoken word, years back.

Crouching in the semi-gloom behind the lamp she watched.

He stepped forward a pace and stopped; lifted one hand slowly, as
though he did not believe what he saw. Bareheaded he waited an instant
after that arm went back to his side. When he swung around and
disappeared into the head of the path that led from the gate into the
black shadow of the thicket in the valley's pit she lifted both arms,
too, and stood poised there a moment, slender and straight and vividly
unwavering as the lamp-flame itself, before she wheeled and ran.

It was dark in the thick of the underbrush; dark and velvety quiet,
save for the little moon-lit patch of a clearing where he waited. He
stood there in the middle of that spot of light and heard her coming
long before she reached him--long before he could see her he heard her
scurrying feet and the whip of bushes against her skirt.

But when she burst through the fringe of brush he had no time to move
or speak, or more than lift his arms before her swift rush carried her
to him. When her hands flashed up about his neck and her damp mouth
went searching softly across his face and he strained her nearer and
even nearer to him, he felt her slim body quivering just as it had
trembled that other night when she had raced across the valley to
him--the night when Judge Maynard's invitation had failed to come.
After a time he made out the words that were tumbling from her lips,
all incoherent with half hysterical bits of sobs, and he