She stared at them through her tears, and drew from her breast her hand with the shell in it. Suddenly her mouth quivered and she cried passionately, "What's the use?" And she snatched the old corn from him and flung it to the millstones with her shell. And the millstones ground them to eternal atoms.... "My boy! my boy! it was you over there in the tree!" "Oh, child, you came at last in your blue gown!" "Why didn't you call to me?" "I'd no breath. I was spent. And I knew you'd seen me and would do your best." "I'll never forget that sight of you in the tree, with your old jersey and your hair as red as ever." "I shall always see your free young figure standing on the high bank against the sky." "Oh, I was desperate." "I wondered what you'd do. I knew you'd do something." "I thought I'd never get across the water." "Do you know what I thought as I saw you coming so bravely and so badly? I thought, I'll teach her to swim one day. Shall I, child?" "I can't swim without you, my boy," she whispered. "But you pretended not to know me!" "I couldn't help it, it was such fun." "How COULD you make fun of me then?" "I always shall, you know." "Oh, yes," she said, "do, always." "What DID you think when you saw me in the tree? What did you see when you got there? Not what you expected." "No. I saw twenty years come flying upon me, twenty years I'd forgotten all about. Because for me it has always been twenty years ago." "And you expected to see a boy, and you saw a grizzled man." "No," said Helen, her eyes shining with tears, "I expected to see a boy, and I saw a gray-haired woman. I've seen her ever since." "I've only seen her once," said Peter. "I saw her rise up from the water and sit in my tree. And when she spoke and looked at me, it was a child." He put his hand over her wet eyes. "You must stop seeing her, child," he said. "When I told you my name, were you disappointed?" "No. It's the loveliest name in the world." "You said it at once." "I had to. I'd wanted to say it for twenty years. But I sha'n't say it often, Helen." "Won't you?" "No, child." "Now and then, for a treat?" she looked up at him half-shy, half-merry. "Oh, you CAN smile, can you?" "You were to teach me that too." "Yes, I've a lot to teach you, haven't I?--I've yet to teach you to say my name." "Have you?" "You've never said it once." "I've said it a thousand times." "You've never let me hear you." "Haven't I?" "Let me hear you!" "Peter." "Say it again!" "Peter! Peter! Peter!" "Again!" "My boy!"... "When we got back to the mill-door the last of the twenty years, that had been melting faster and faster, melted away for ever. And you and I were standing there as we'd stood then; and I wanted to kiss your mouth as I'd wanted to then." "Oh, why didn't you?--both times!" "Shall I now, for both times?" "Oh!--oh, that's for a hundred times." "Think of all the times I've wanted to, and been without you." "You've never been without me."