The cold, unkindly
memory slid along his senses like a snake. On the edge of the sloping
road-bank, studded with little yellow flowers, just where the trees
stopped, Pete set down his load and waited, instinctively bracing
his body, drawing it back beneath the shelter of one of the big pines.
The steps were light and swift and stealthy. In the purplish confusion
of the distance, a tangled and yet ordered regiment of trunks and
boughs, sun-splotches and shadow-blots, through which the uncertain
trail seemed to rise like a slender thread of smoke to the pale,
flecked sky, Pete made out a moving shape. It slipped in and out;
it hesitated, hurried, paused, moved on. With a shudder of relief
and of surprise, Pete saw it; out from behind the great, close trunks
came Sylvie, her chin lifted, her hands stretched out on either side,
brushing the swinging branches along the trail, her small head turning
from this side to that, as though she listened in suspense.
Pete called out her name and ran quickly to meet her. Forgetting his
part of a dull, sullen boy, he spoke eagerly, catching her hand,
watching the warm, happy blush flow in her cheeks.
"Where were you?" she asked.
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