tired face set into stern lines; a paleness dimmed his freckles and a
fever brightened his eyes, but the heat in his blood, now at the day's
end, acted like a stimulant to his thoughts. No longer did he fear or
doubt--he had passed that stage and, like a warrior reinforced and
exhilarated, he began to whistle confidently and almost joyously. He
meant to give Mary her share of his profits, but he would leave them in
the box beside the stone that so long had hid his secret.

Over the Branch and up the hill to the woods went Sandy with an
uplifted expression on his poor, bruised face and the dignity of his
clothing adding a strange touch of age to him. Near the sacred spot he
paused and the tune died on his lips. Some one or some thing was
stirring just beyond, and, of a sudden, fear and past doubt drove the
blood from his heart. His only thought was of Molly! All the years,
perhaps, she had deceived and betrayed him. He had, like a coward,
failed to count his money; to guard it as he should!

Creeping forward on hands and knees he made his way silently through
the bushes. He knew the trick of the beasts; knew how to pad the
underbrush beneath his hands before he trusted the weight of his body
to it. When within a few feet of the spot whence the sound of moving
came, Sandy started up and dashed with one bound into the open. His
hands were spread wide with eagerness to grip that which had betrayed
him, and so he came upon--Cynthia Walden! He fell back panting, when
his brain, at last, interpreted for him what he saw. The girl sat with
the tin box of money in her lap; the overturned stone beside her and
the last rays of the hot sun filtering through the dogwood trees and
pines upon her sweet, pale beauty. By a sharp trick of memory Sandy
recalled how the dogwood blossoms one spring long past had looked like
stars under the dark pines and now he thought that Cynthia's face was
like the pale, starry blossoms. He was always to remember her so when,
in the hard years on before, she was to come to him in fancy and
longing. A pure girl-face, radiant with hope and bravery, touched,
just then, with startled fear which faded into laughing triumph as she
recognized Sandy.

"You thought it was--Molly?" she whispered, holding her hands clasped
over the box in her lap. "So did I. Once I found her here--found her
hunting under one rock after another. I gave her a lick on the back I
reckon she has always remembered." T