"'Twill that!" he cried. His eyes were soft and bright and dewy. Somehow it seemed to bind him--that chain of flowers--to the fair world without, which had been slipping away, away forever. He turned, and looked out toward the rocky egress of the cave as if he almost expected to see already a cardinal flower flaming in the sun on the gray rock. There was no sun. The rain fell, dense still,--dense enough, doubtless, to preclude all observation from without; but from among the shadows within his practiced eyes descried through the shifting, shimmering veil, now white and gray in shoaling effects, all blown aslant by the wind, a canvas-covered wagon lumbering by, albeit for the rush of the stream and the fall of the torrent she could not hear the slow creak of its wheels. His heart was a-flutter, although he knew that the danger of observation was past, as the swaying white hood had disappeared. "That's 'Renzo Taft," he remarked. "He's gittin' back late from the cross-roads. I reckon the storm cotch him an' kep' him." He hesitated. Then, with a sort of falter of humiliation, "I reckon I'd better go back ter my hidin' place, Julia. The rain's slackening so somebody passin' mought view me. Ye jes' set hyar right quiet an' wait fur the rain ter hold up." He turned away; then looked back over his shoulder. "Good-by," he said. The girl's luminous eyes dwelt smilingly upon him. "Good-by," she answered softly. He took his way along the ledges above the treacherous stream to that blacker recess where the way deflected and the light failed; he turned once more. "I'll be a-watchin' fur them flowers," he said. Her smile itself was like a bloom; he, unaware, treasured the recollection. He seemed to reflect it in some sort. He was smiling himself, as he went down into those sunless depths. He could not forbear partly retracing his way once, and looking at her as she sat, quite still, gazing out with her eyes of summer and sunshine upon the rain, and the dreary, sad, tear-stained aspect of the world without, whence sounded the sobbing of the troubled wind. When he came yet another time, the rain had ceased, and she was gone. XIV.