Part 26 (1/2)

”There were other days on the Avenue which you could have remembered,”

she returned. ”There was that day when we met--after long years. And that day I remembered the valley and the boy who had come into the mountains to help me; I remembered my father's last words to us, and for a little while I was foolish enough to think that it must be for that that I had found you again.”

I would have taken the outstretched hand, but she drew it away quickly and stepped back.

”And do you think I had forgotten the mountains that day?” I said.

”Why, Penelope, I loved you that day as I love you now, as I have from the morning when you and I rode into the valley together.”

I took a step toward her, but she moved from me, and stood with her hands clasped behind her back and her head tilted proudly as she looked up at me.

”It sounds well,” she said, her lips curling in disdain. ”But how about Miss Dodd, or Miss Todd?”

”Why will you be forever casting that up at me?” I protested. ”For a time I did forget. I was a plain fool. But, Penelope----”

”I must be going,” she said; but though she pointed toward the slope down which I had come from the little piazza, she really went again to the wall and stood there where I first found her, as though held spellbound by the view.

I was beside her. ”Penelope,” I said firmly, ”there are some things which you and I must straighten out here and now.”

”There is nothing to straighten out,” she said. ”Everything is settled. We are friends.” Lifting a hand, she pointed over the plain.

”What does that remind you of, David?”

”A little of the valley,” I answered. Then I raised my hand too.

”There are the mountains, Penelope, and just before them the ridge over which we rode that morning. Do you remember it? Do you remember how Nathan ran away over the trail, how you clung to me and called to me to save you? Home should be down there where you see the village. Do you remember----”

Penelope was looking from me, as though at the stone house, its roof just showing in the green of giant oaks.

Again she raised her hand. ”And the barn, David--the big white barn--there!” she cried. Then she checked herself. She was very straight and very still. ”I was forgetting,” she said.

A step closer and I said: ”You do remember, Penelope!”

”I must be going,” she returned in a low voice, but she did not move.

I feared to speak now lest I should awaken her from the revery in which she seemed to have suddenly forgotten my existence.

”I must be going,” she said again, and still she did not move.

She was looking across our valley! I knew that she saw it as on the morning when we rode in terror from the woods and it lay beneath us, a friendly land, in the broad day, under the kindly eye of G.o.d. Then I bent nearer her, an arm resting on the wall, my eyes on her averted face, patiently waiting until she should speak. And I could wait patiently now, for I believed that in the silence the memory of that day was fighting for me.