Stumbling to the doorway, I leaned there, vaguely
glad the horrid business was over, since I found myself faint and
sick. Afar off I heard lugubrious voices that called one to another, a
snapping of twigs growing ever fainter, and a rustle of leaves that
marked their flight.
Down my cheeks and into my eyes a sticky moisture was trickling that I
knew was blood, but the sweet night air revived me greatly so that, my
strength returning, I presently--stumbled back into the blackness of
the barn, found my way to the ladder and leaned there a while. And
after some time, I lifted heavy head and spoke:
"Diana--are you there--my Diana?"
Silence, and a sudden, sickening dread, a growing fear, insomuch that
I made shift to climb the ladder and, lifting heavy hand, rapped upon
the trap door:
"Diana--O Diana--are you there?"
An inarticulate cry, and next moment the trap door was lifted,
revealing a square of vivid light, and in this radiant glory--Diana's
face.
"Diana," said I, wiping the blood from my eyes the better to behold
her loveliness, "Diana--when will you--marry me?"
"O Peregrine--oh, my beloved!"
And down to me she reached her strong and gentle arms to draw me up
from the darkness into the glory of her presence.
CHAPTER IV
I WAIT FOR A CONFESSION
"O Peregrine! My dear--how they have hurt you!"
She was ministering to my scratches and abrasions, and I, sitting on
the old hay-pile, watched her, joying in the gentle touch of her
white, dexterous hands, her sweet motherliness and all the warm, vital
beauty of her.
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