Perhaps he would
go as far even as John Gardner's, and spend the night there. He went up
the street for a block before turning north, lest his friends in the
garden hail him. Then walking quickly he pushed on towards the outskirts
of town, on the old Academy Hill road.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
HEARTS' TRAGEDIES
"So she sent him away to fight his battle alone, knowing it was the only
way such a battle could be rightly fought."
When Miss Farwell, under the oak tree in the Academy yard, turned her
eyes from the far blue roll of hills to see Dan Matthews coming through
the gap in the tumble-down fence, it was as if he had appeared in answer
to her thoughts, and the intensity of her emotions at the moment,
frightened her.
Her first impulse was to escape. Then she sat still, watching him as if
fascinated, while her trembling fingers picked at the young grass by her
side. With his face turned toward the valley below, Dan came slowly
across the weed-grown yard, unconscious of the presence of the young
woman on the knoll. Then he looked in her direction. With her face turned
quickly half-aside, she saw him stop suddenly as if halted by the same
feeling that had so moved her.
For a full minute he stood there as if questioning his senses. The girl
sat very still. Once she thought he would turn back--then he came on
eagerly, as he had come that day from the water when he had looked up to
see her on the river bank. And then he stood before her as he had stood
that other day long weeks ago, with the sunlight on his red-brown hair.
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