Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/89

 He had no answer, so he tried to laugh also, and to take her hand at the same time. She was too quick for him, and swung half a pace aside. They were then at the gate of Lague, where long years before Stephen Orry first saw the light through the elms. A late rook was still cawing overhead; the heifers had gone on towards the courtyard.

"You must go now, so good-bye," she said softly.

"Greeba," he said.

"Well? Only speak lower," she whispered, coming closer. He could feel the warm glow of her body.

"Do you think, now, if I should be a long time away—years it may be, perhaps many years—we should ever forget each other, we two?"

"Forget? No, not to say forget, you know," she answered.

"But should we remember?"

"Remember? You silly, silly boy, if we should not forget how ever could we fail to remember?"

"Don't laugh at me, Greeba; and promise me one thing," and then he whispered in her ear.

She sprang away and laughed once more, and started to run down the path. But in three strides he had her again.

"That will not do for me, Greeba," he said, breathing fast. "Promise me that you will wait for me."

"Well," she said softly, her dark eyes full of merriment, "I'll promise that while you are away no one else shall spoil me. There! Good-bye!"

She was tearing herself out of his hands.

"First give me a token," he said.

Daffodils lined the path, though in the dusk he could not see them. But she knew they were there, and stooped and plucked two, blew upon both, gave one to him, and put the other into the folds at her bosom.

"Good-bye! Good-bye!" she said in an under-breath.

"Good-bye!" he answered.

She ran a few steps, but he could not let her go yet, and in an instant he sprang abreast of her. He threw one arm about her waist and the other about her neck, tipped up her chin, and kissed her on the lips. A gurgling laugh came up to him.

"Remember!" he whispered over the upturned face in the white kerchief.

At the next instant he was gone. Then, standing under the dark elms alone, she heard the porch-door opening, a heavy