ittle feet which had moved in a circle, and not once did he look
behind, else would he have seen the smoke of the burning tents. He
moved slowly, not because he feared or because he did not want to run,
but because he knew, and wanted time in which to reason with himself,
to decide if he had the right to take the joy which was waiting for him.

He stood for a moment with his hands in his pockets, the strong,
silent, lovable man that he was, and shook himself just as a spaniel
does when it comes out of the water. He had been nigh to drowning in
the depths, and out of his pocket, to be lost for ever, had fallen the
jewel of youth; but somehow he had managed to scramble to the bank and
to pull himself out, and he made a step forward and swept the horizon
to see if his journey was at an end; then hesitated--remembering.

He stood quite still and looked at a slender figure wrapt about in a
mantle of gold which stood some distance off, with hands outstretched
toward him and with beckoning finger. And the wind, with a laugh,
lifted the veil from her face, and dropped it, and lifted it again, and
swept the mantle so that it clung to the slender, supple figure, then
spread it out behind like gleaming wings.

She put one finger to her mouth, and opened wide her eyes of knowledge
shaded with the fringe of tears, which come from pain, and just as much
from joy.

"Follow me," she whispered, and the south wind seized upon the golden
tones, and flung them to the west wind, and to the east, and to the
north wind, so that the message was carried right across the world:
"Follow me--I am Hope."

And he plunged his hands still further into his pockets and scrunched
up some keys and small change and a most cherished pipe, just out of
gratitude, and walked on.

He found her; in fact, he would have seen her ever so much sooner if
she had not been lying face down on the sands, with her head buried in
her arms. He did not hasten, knowing that the whole of his life
stretched before him in which to heal her hurt. She did not hear him
because he walked lightly, as those delightfully big men do; and he
stood over her, wondering how to rouse her without frightening her, and
frowned when a little sob shook her.

Then he smiled.

Strange is it how, in the very middle of the most dramatic situation, a
little thought will push open the lid of its own little brain-cell and
creep out to touch our risible nerve. It really ought to know bette