"That's right," he smiled. "I'll keep that to remember you by. What did you think I was going to say? You seemed as though you expected something--then as if you were disappointed. What was it?" She was very careful in settling the flower. Then she dropped her hands and looked up at him. "I asked nothing," she said. "How should I be disappointed?" "Asked! No! I saw it in your eyes." She answered swiftly, almost as one speaking in menace of offending words: "What in mine eyes?" "Why, what I tell you. As though you expected something and were disappointed." "No more?" she inquired, and repeated it--"No more?" "No more--no. But I want to know why--or what?" She gave a gentle laugh and relaxed her attitude that had been strained, in keeping with her voice. She seemed to have feared he had derived some secret that she had; and she seemed glad and yet a little sad her eyes had not betrayed her. She gave a gentle laugh and threw her hands apart as if to show how small a thing was here. "Why, little master, there is nothing in that," she said. "The eyes light for that the heart runneth to peep through them as a child to the window." He laughed at the pleasant fancy: "Well, what did your heart run to see?" "Nay, I have not done," she told him. "Look also how one may see a child run happily past the window--from the van I have seen it: so sometimes the heart but passeth across the eyes with a glad face, singing from one happy thought to where another waits. I think my heart passed so and thou didst catch the gleam." He heard her take in a quick breath as her words ended. Then, "Suffer me to go now," she said. "Keep my pretty flowers;" and turned and went swiftly from him down the slope; and was dim where the moonlight faded; and was gone in the further darkness. CHAPTER VII ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE I She was as quickly gone from Percival's mind as from his sight. Now that he was free and alone--as he had wished to be alone--he faced about with an abrupt movement and began to set homewards at a swift pace along the Ridge; simultaneously his mind returned to his own business.