er could just hear it, as he held out his hands to her.

For Nada was no longer the Nada who had come to him in Father John's
clearing. She was the Nada of Cragg's Ridge, the Nada of that wild night
of storm when he had fled into the north. Her hair fell about her, as in
the old days when Peter and she had played together among the rocks and
flowers, and her wedding dress was faded and torn, for it was the dress
she had worn that night of despair when she sent her message to Peter's
master, and on her little feet were shoes broken and disfigured by her
flight in those last hours of her mighty effort to go with the man
she loved. In Father John's eyes, as she stood there, was a great
astonishment; but in Jolly Roger's there came such a joy that, in answer
to it, Nada went straight into his arms and held up her lips to be
kissed.

Her cheeks were very pink when she stood beside McKay, with Father John
before them, the open book in his hands; and then, as her long lashes
drooped over her eyes, and her breath came a little more quickly, she
saw Peter staring at her questioningly, and made a little motion to
him with her hand. He went to her, and her fingers touched his head as
Father John began speaking. Peter looked up, and listened, and was
very quiet in these moments. Jolly Roger was staring straight at the
balsam-decked wall opposite him, but there was something mighty strong
and proud in the way he held his head, and the fear had gone completely
out of his eyes. And Nada 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 t