Maddy did not know what she was saying, or half comprehend the effect it had on Guy, who forgot everything save that she had missed him, had turned to him in her trouble, and it was not in his nature to resist her appeal. With a spring he was at her side, and lifting her in his arms seated himself upon her mother’s grave; then straining her tightly to his bosom, he kissed her again and again. Hot, burning, passionate kisses they were, which took from Maddy all power of resistance, even had she wished to resist, which she did not. Too weak to reason, or see the harm, if harm there were, in being loved by Guy, she abandoned herself for a brief interval to the bliss of knowing that she was beloved, and of hearing him tell her so. “Darling Maddy,” he said, “I went away because you sent me, but now I have come back, and nothing shall part us again. You are mine, I claim you here at your mother’s grave. Dear Maddy, I did not know of all this till three days ago, when Agnes’s letter found me almost at the Rocky Mountains. Then I traveled day and night, reaching Aikenside this morning, and coming straight to Honedale. I wish I had come before, now that I know you wanted me. Say that again, Maddy. Tell me again that you missed and wanted me.” He was smoothing her hair, as her head still lay pillowed upon his breast, so he could not see the spasm of pain which contorted her features as he thus appealed to her. Half bewildered, Maddy could not at first make out whether it were a blissful dream or a reality, that she was there in Guy’s arms, with his kisses on her forehead, lips and cheek, his words of love in her ear, and the soft summer sky smiling down upon her. Alas, it was a dream from which she was awakened by the thought of one across the sea, whoso place she had usurped, and this it was which brought the grieved expression to her face as she answered mournfully: “I did want you, Guy, when I forgot; but now—oh, Guy—Lucy Atherstone!” With a gesture of impatience Guy was about to answer, when something in the heavy fall of the little hand from his shoulder alarmed him, and lifting up the drooping head he saw that Maddy had fainted. Then back across the meadow Guy bore her to the cottage, where Flora, who had just returned from a neighbor’s, whither she had gone upon an errand, was looking for her in much affright, and wondering who had come from Aikenside with that wet, tired horse, which showed so plainly how hard it had been driven.