"Entirely?"
"Yes."
He said,--a slight emotion noticeable in his voice: "Well, I forgave you
before the darned gun exploded in our hands."
"How _could_ you?" she protested.
"I was thinking all the while that you were acting as I'd have acted if
anything threatened _my_ father."
"Were you thinking of _that_?"
"Yes,--and also how to get hold of you before you shot me." He began to
laugh.
After a moment she turned her head to look at him, and her smile
glimmered, responsive to his amusement. But she shivered slightly, too.
"How about that egg?" he inquired.
"I can get up----"
"Better keep off your feet. What is there in the pantry? You must be
starved."
"I could eat a little before supper time," she admitted. "I forgot to
take my lunch with me this morning. It is still there in the pantry on
the bread box, wrapped up in brown paper, just as I left it----"
She half rose in bed, supported on one arm, her curly brown-gold hair
framing her face:
"--Two cakes of sugar-milk chocolate in a flat brown packet tied with a
string," she explained, smiling at his amusement.
So he went down to the pantry and discovered the parcel on the bread box
where she had left it that morning before starting for the cache on Owl
Marsh.
He brought it to her, placed both pillows upright behind her, stepped
back gaily to admire the effect. Eve, with her parcel in her hands,
laughed shyly at his comedy.
"Begin on your chocolate," he said. "I'm going back to fix you some
bread and butter and a cup of tea."
When again he had disappeared, the girl, still smiling, began to untie
her packet, unhurriedly, slowly loosening string and wrapping.
Her attention was not fixed on what her slender fingers were about.
She drew from the parcel a flat morocco case with a coat of arms and
crest stamped on it in gold, black, and scarlet.
For a few moments she stared at the object stupidly. The next moment she
heard Stormont's spurred tread on the stairs; and she thrust the morocco
case and the wrapping under the pillows behind her.
She looked up at him in a dazed way when he came in with the tea and
bread. He set the tin tray on her bureau and came over to the bedside.
"Eve," he said, "you look very white and ill. Have you been hurt
somewhere, and haven't you admitted it?"
She seemed unable to speak, and he took both her hands and looked
anxiously into the lovely, pallid features.
After a moment she turned her head and buried her face in the pillow,
trembling now in overwhelming realization of what she had endured for
the sake of two cakes of sugar-milk chocolate hidden under a bush in the
forest.
* * * * *
For a long while the girl lay there, the feverish flush of tears on her
partly hidden face, her nervous hands tremulous, restless, now seeking
his, convulsively, now striving to escape his clasp--eloquent, uncertain
little hands that seemed to tell so much and yet were telling him
nothing he could understand.
"Eve, dear," he said, "are you in pain? What is it that has happened to
you? I thought you were all right. You seemed all right----"
"I am," she said in a smothered voice. "You'll stay here with me, won't
you?"
"Of course I will. It's just the reaction. It's all over. You're
relaxing. That's all, dear. You're safe. Nothing can harm you now----"
"Please don't leave me."