stood very close to him, so that her brown
head lightly touched his shoulder and he could see the silken shimmer
of loose tresses which with sweet intent she had let fall over his arm.
And her little fingers clung tightly to his thumb, as on that blessed
night when they had walked together across the plain below Cragg's
Ridge, with the moon lighting their way.

Peter, in his dog way, fell a-wondering as he stood there, but kept his
manners and remained still. When it was all over he felt a desire to
show his teeth and growl, for when Father John had kissed Nada, and was
shaking Jolly Roger's hand, he saw his mistress crying in that strange,
silent way he had so often seen her crying in his puppyhood days. Only
now her blue eyes were wide open as she looked at Jolly Roger, and her
cheeks were flushed to the pink of wild rose petals, and her lips were
trembling a little, and there was a tiny something pulsing in her soft
white throat. And all at once there came a smile with the tears, and
Jolly Roger--turning from Father John to find her thus--gathered her
close in his arms, and Peter wagged his tail and went out into the
sun-filled day, where he heard a red squirrel challenging him from a
stub in the edge of the clearing.

A little later he saw Nada and his master come out of the cabin, and
walk hand in hand across the open into the sweet-smelling timber where
Father John had been chopping with his axe.

On a fresh-cut log Nada sat down, and McKay sat beside her, still
holding her hand. Not once had he spoken in crossing the open, and it
seemed as though little devils were holding his lips closed now.

With her eyes looking down at the greening earth under their feet, Nada
said, very softly,

"Mister--Jolly Roger--are you glad?"

"Yes," he said.

"Glad that I am--your wife?"

The word drew a great, sobbing breath from him, and looking up suddenly
she saw that he was staring over the balsam-tops into the wonderful
blue of the sky.

"Your _wife_," she whispered, touching his shoulder gently with her lips.

"Yes, I'm glad," he said. "So glad that I'm--afraid."

"Then--if you are glad--please kiss me again."

He stood up, and drew her to him, and held her face between his hands
as he kissed her red lips; and after that he kissed her shining hair
again and again, and when he let her go her eyes were a glory of
happiness.

"And you will never run away from me again?" she demanded, holding him
at arm's length.