"Pat, darling," said a voice from the shadows around her.
She turned ... incredulous ... amazed ...
"Jingle!"
The old name sprang to her lips. The autumn dusk was no longer cold and loveless over the remote hills. Something seemed to have come with him ... courage ... hope ... inspiration ... that same dear sense of protection and understanding that had come to her that evening of long ago when he had found her lost in the dark on the Base Line road. She held out both her hands but he caught her in his arms ... his lips were seeking hers ... a tremor half fear, half delight, shook her. And then that old, old unacknowledged ache of loneliness she had tried to stifle with Silver Bush vanished forever. His lips were on hers ... and she KNEW. It was like a tide turning home.
"I've made you mine forever with that kiss," he said triumphantly. "You can never belong to anyone else. And I've waited long enough for it," he added with his old laugh.
Pat stood quivering with his arms about her. Life was not over after all ... it was only beginning.
"I ... I don't deserve you, Hilary," she whispered humbly. "It seems ... it seems ... oh, are you REALLY here? I'm not dreaming it, am I?"
"I'm real, sweetheart ... joy ... delight ... wonder! I started as soon as I saw the account of the fire in an Island paper. But I was coming anyway ... I had only been waiting to finish our house. I know what this tragedy of Silver Bush must have meant to you ... but I've a home for you by another sea, Pat. And in it we'll build up a new life and the old will become just a treasury of dear and sacred memories ... of things time cannot destroy. Will you come to it with me?"
"I'll go to the end of the world and back with you, Hilary. I can't understand my not knowing all these years that it was you I loved. Those other men ... some of them were so nice ... I thought I couldn't marry them because I couldn't leave Silver Bush ... but I know now it was because they weren't YOU ..."
"Are you really my girl ... MY girl at last, Pat? You remember how furiously you used to deny it? And your eyes are as brown as ever, Pat. I can't see in the dimness but I'm sure they are. And I know you look just as much as ever like a creamy rose with gold in its heart. Do you know, Pat, I never got your letter or Judy's kittens till two months ago? I've been in Japan for over a year, studying Japanese architecture. Letters were forwarded but parcels weren't. And you broke the postal laws shamelessly by tucking your letter inside the parcel. Dearest, let's go into the old graveyard and sit on a slab. I want to have you wholly to myself for an hour before we go back to Swallowfield. There's going to be a moonrise to-night ... how long is it since we watched a moonrise together?"
"A moonrise tonight." That was always a magical phrase. Pat was in a maze of happiness as they walked to the old graveyard and sat on Weeping Willy's flat tombstone. She hadn't felt like this for years ... had believed she could never feel like this again ... as if some supernal musician had swept her very soul with his fingers and evolved some ethereal harmony. Was it possible life could always be so rich ... so poignant ... so SIGNIFICANT as this?
"I want to tell you all about the home I have ready for you," said Hilary. "When I came back from Japan and found the picture and your letter I wanted to come east at once. But that very day when I was prowling on the heights above the city I found a spot ... a spot I RECOGNIZED, although I had never seen it before ... a spot that WANTED me. There was a spring in the corner with a little brook trickling out ... four darling little apple trees in another corner ... and a hill of pines behind it, with a river and a mountain within neighborly distance ... a faint blue mountain. I don't know its name but we'll call it the Hill of the Mist. That spot was just crying for a house to be built on it. So ... I built one. It's waiting for you. It's a dear house, Pat ... fat red chimneys ... sharp little gables on the side of the roof ... a door that says 'come in' and another one that says, 'stay out.' It's painted white and has bottlegreen shutters like Silver Bush."
"It sounds heavenly, Hilary ... but I'd live in an igloo in Greenland if you were there."
"There's a lovely jam closet," said Hilary slyly. "I thought you'd want one."
Pat's eyes flickered.
"Of course I want one. While I live and move and have my being I'll want a jam closet," she said decidedly. "And we'll have Judy's rugs on the floor and the old Silver Bush knocker on the door that says 'come in'."
"The dining-room has a wide, low window opening into the pine wood at the back. We can eat with the sound of the pines in our ears. And from the other window we can see the sunset while we eat our supper. I've built the house, Pat ... I've provided the body but you must provide the soul. There's a lovely big fireplace that can hold real logs ... I left it all laid ready for lighting ... you will light the fire and make the room live."
"Like the old kitchen at Silver Bush. It WILL be homelike."
"You could make any place home-like, Pat. We'll sit there caring only when we want to care for what is outside ... wind or rain, mist or moonshine. We'll have a dog that wags his tail when he sees us ... more than one. Lots of jolly little dogs and furry kittens. And a Silver Bush cat. I suppose Bold-and-Bad is too old to endure emigration to a far land."
"Yes, he must end his days at Swallowfield. Aunt Barbara loves him. But I'm sure it will be possible to send a kitten by express-- it has been done. Hilary, why did you give up writing to me?"
"I thought it wasn't any use. I thought the only decent thing to do was to leave you in peace. Besides, you WERE taking me too much for granted, Pat. You were blinded by our years of friendship. When can we be married, Pat?"
"As soon as you like," said Pat shamelessly. "At least ... when I've had time to get a few clothes. I haven't a rag but what I'm wearing."
"We'll spend our honeymoon in a chalet in the Austrian Tyrol, Pat. I picked it out years ago. Then we'll go home ... HOME. Listen to me rolling the word under my tongue. I've never had a home, you know. Oh, how tired I am of living in other people's houses! Pat, there is water in the house, of course, but I've made a little well out of the spring in the corner and stoned it up ... a delightful little well where we can dip up water under the ferns. And we'll put a saucer of milk there every night for the fairies. Judy's white kittens are already hanging on the wall of our living room and that old china dog with the blue eyes you gave me years ago is squatting on the mantelpiece."
"Hilary, you don't mean to say you've got that yet?"
"Haven't I! It has gone everywhere with me ... it's been my mascot. We'll make it a family heirloom. And I have a few things picked up in my wanderings you'll love, Pat."
"Is there a good place for a garden?"
"The best. We'll have a garden, my very own dear ... with columbine for the fairies and poppies for dancing shadows and marigolds for laughter. And we'll have the walks picked off with whitewashed stones. Slugs and spiders and blight and mildew will never infest it, I feel sure. You've always been a sort of half- cousin to the fairies and you ought to be able to keep such plagues away."
Delightful nonsense! Was it she, Pat, who was laughing at it ... she, who had been in such despair an hour ago? Miracles DID happen. And it was so easy to laugh when Hilary was about. That new, far, unseen home would be as full of laughter as Silver Bush had been.
"And Rae will be somewhere near after two years," thought Pat.
They sat in a trance of happiness, savouring "the unspent joy of all the unborn years" in the moonlight and waving shadows of the ancient graveyard where so many kind old hearts rested. They had been dust for many years but their love lived on. Judy had been right. Love did not ... could not die.
The moon had risen. The sky was like a great silver bowl pouring down light over the world. A little wind raised and swayed the long hair-like grass growing around the slab on Judy's grave, giving the curious suggestion of something prisoned under it trying to draw a long breath and float upward.