nd held it out
before him in the palm of one big hand. Then he swung down to the
ground beside her.

"I thought it must have been Old Jerry who brought it. I didn't see
him, and no one could remember his name or knew where he had gone when
they thought to look for him. They--they just described him to me."

He turned the bow of silk over, touching it almost reverently.

"Some one gave it to me," he continued slowly. "I don't know exactly
how or when. It--it was just put into my hand--when I needed it most.
I wasn't sure Old Jerry had brought it, but I knew it came from you,
knew it when I didn't--know--much--else!"

She was very, very quiet, content merely in his nearness. Even then
she didn't understand it--the reason for his going that night, weeks
before--for the papers which had told her a little had told her
nothing of his brain's own reason. The question was on her lips when
her narrow fingers, searching the shadow for his, found that bandaged
wrist and knuckles. Almost fiercely she drew that hand up into the
light. From the white cloth her gaze went to the discolored, bruised
patches on face and chin--the same place where that long, ugly cut had
been which dripped blood on the floor the night she had run from him
in the dark--went to his face, and back again, limpid with pity. And
she lifted it impulsively and tucked it under her chin, and held it
there with small hands that trembled a little.

"Then--then if you haven't seen Old Jerry--why--why you--he couldn't
have told you anything at all yet, about me."

The words trailed off softly and left the statement hanging
interrogatively in midair.

Denny nodded his head in the direction of John Anderson's house that
had been.

"About that?" he asked.

She nodded her head. And then she told him; she began at the very
beginning and told him everything from that night when she had watched
him there under cover of the thicket. Once she tried to laugh when she
related Old Jerry's panic, a week or two later, when he had come to
find her packing in preparation to leave. But her mirth was waveringly
unsteady. And when she tried to explain, too, how she had chanced to
buy up the mortgage on his own bleak house on the hill, her voice
again became suddenly, diffidently small.

There was a new, sweet confusion in her refusal to meet his eyes and
Denny, reaching out with his bandaged hand, half lifted her and swung
her around until she needs must face him.

"You--y