"_You_ are," she whispered. "I know that.... I should die if you ever turned so as not to care for me;" and she nestled against him.
"Norah."
With a last a.s.sumption of the fatherly manner he stooped and kissed her forehead. Then she raised her lips to his, and they kissed slowly.
"Norah," he muttered. "Oh, Norah."
He felt as though almost swooning from delight. It was a rapture that he had never known--a voluptuous joy that yet brought with it complete appeas.e.m.e.nt to nerves and pulses.
"Norah, Norah;" and he continued to kiss her lips and mutter her name.
All thought had gone. It was as though all that was trouble and pain inside him had melted into sweet streams of delight--streams of fire; but a magical flame that soothes and restores, instead of burning and destroying. He went on fondling her, glorying in her freshness, her immature grace, her youthful beauty. And she was silent and pa.s.sive, yielding to his gentle movements, pressing close if he held her to him, relaxing the pressure and becoming limp if he wished to see her face and held her from him, making him understand by messages through every sense channel that she was his absolutely.
Then after a while she began to talk in the pretty birdlike whisper that enchanted and enthralled him.
"Why didn"t she want me to come here--really?"
"She--she thought you came to meet some lad."
"Oh, no;" and she gave a little laugh, and pressed against him. "It"s the truth, what I"ve always answered to her. I came because I couldn"t help it. Shall I tell you all my secrets--secrets I"ve never told any one?"
"Yes."
"Ever since I was a child--quite small--I hev always thought something wondersome would happen to me in Hadleigh Wood."
"Why should you think that?"
He had sat up stiffly, and while she clung whispering at his breast he looked out over her head, glancing his eyes in all directions.
Straight in front of him across the glade, the great beeches were gray and ghostly, and beyond them in the strip that concealed the ride it seemed that the shadows had suddenly thickened and blackened.
"I"ll tell you. But _you_ tell me something first. Does Mrs. Dale think this place is haunted?"
He changed his att.i.tude abruptly, put his hands on her shoulders and held her away from him, so that he could see her face.
"What was it you asked me?"
"Does she fancy the wood is haunted?"
"No, why?"
"I believe she does."
"Rubbish. Why should she?"
"They used to say it was. Granny used to say so. She gave me some dreadful whippings for coming here. Poor Granny was just like Mrs.
Dale about it--always saying it wasn"t right for me to come here."
Dale had settled the girl on his knees so that she sat now without any support from him. His hands had dropped to the rough surface of the tree; and he spoke in his ordinary voice.
"Look here, Norah, never mind for a moment what your Granny said. Tell me what it was that my wife said."
"When do you mean? Last time she was angry?"
"I mean, whatever she said--and whenever she said it--about ghosts or hauntings."
"Oh, a long time ago. It was to Mrs. Goudie."
"I expect you misunderstood her. But I"d like to know what first put such nonsense into your head--that Mrs. Dale thought the wood was haunted. Can"t you remember exactly what she did say?"
"She said something about the gentleman"s being killed here, and she wondered at the people coming a Sundays like they used to."
"Was that all?"
"No, she said something about it would serve them right for their pains if they saw the gentleman"s ghost."
Dale grunted. "That was just her joke. There are no such things as ghosts."
"Aren"t there?" Norah laughed softly and happily, and snuggled down again with her face against his jacket. "_You_ aren"t a ghost--though you made me jump, yes, you did. But I wasn"t afraid of you."
"Hush," he muttered. "Norah, don"t go on--don"t." His hands were still on the tree, rigidly fixed there, and he sat bolt upright, staring out over her head.
"Why not? You said I might tell my secrets. I wasn"t afraid. I thought "Oh, aren"t I glad I done what Mrs. Dale told me not to--and come into my wondersome, wondersome wood, and drawn _you_ after me!""
"Norah, stop."
"Why? You"re glad too, aren"t you? I _know_ you are. I knew it when you came walking so tall and so quiet; an" I thought "This is it--what I always hoped for--wonders to happen to me in Hadleigh Wood." But I was afraid of the wood once--more afraid than Granny knew. I wouldn"t tell her."
"What d"you mean? What wouldn"t you tell her?"
"What I"d seen here."
"What had you seen?"
"I kep" it as my great secret--but I"ll tell you, because you"ve found out all my secrets, now, haven"t you?"
"Well, let"s hear it."
"I saw a man hiding, crawling, ready to spring out on me."
"Oh. When was that?"
"Ages and ages ago, when I was almost a baby."
"Heft yourself, Norah. I want to get up, an" stretch ma legs."
The gentle soothing fire had faded--an invincible coldness crept on slow-moving blood from his heart to his brain. The girl was safe now.
He would not injure her to-night. He got up, and stood looking down at her.