The morning began to arrive. And still the School-teacher waited. No one came. The room was profoundly silent. The breath of the morning entering, distilled a faint perfume out of the little bunches of wild flowers, a vague odor that arose and sweetened the room. The night was dead. The day was beginning to be born. Then it was that the one for whom the School-teacher waited finally came. There was a faint sound outside, as though one approached walking softly on the grass, as though a hand passed gently along the door. The School-teacher rose. The latch of the door moved, the door turned noiselessly on its hinges, and the woman who had fled from the Schoolteacher into the forest entered. The whole aspect of the woman was changed. The purple stains on her mouth, the powder on her face, were gone. Her hair, too, had been cleansed of its cheap scent. It clung in damp strands about her face. The swagger, the defiance, the loud notes and color had gone out of her. And that which remained after these things were gone, now alone existed--as though the whole fabric of the woman had been washed with water. The woman put her hand swiftly to her face, to her hair; she caught her breath. “Oh!” she said, “I thought you were asleep.” The School-teacher's voice was incomparably gentle. “No,” he said, “I have been waiting for you.” “Then you thought I would come?” “I knew that you would come.” “I had to come,” she said. “I could not go back to--to--the other!” “No,” he said, “you never could go back to that.” “An'--an'--I had nowhere else to go.” “I know that,” replied the Schoolteacher, “there is no place that you could go, except to me.” CHAPTER X |THE children had bought the School-teacher a hat. It had been a large undertaking, and the cause of innumerable secret conferences in the grove behind the schoolhouse. The purchase of so costly a thing as a hat required a certain sum of money. To raise this sum of money, the children had been put to the most desperate straits. Every tiny store that any child possessed had been brought forward and contributed to the common fund. The difficulty did not lie in the drawing on this store. Although every contribution meant a sacrifice to the donor, no child had hesitated. There had been no question about what each should give, and no inquiry as to a holding back of resources. Every child had simply given all he had. Ancient two-cent pieces with holes in them, worn nickles, one or two long-treasured ten-cent pieces, and one-cent pieces thumbed with counting, were withdrawn from snuffboxes, essence of coffee boxes, pill boxes, holes in the wall, from under the loose stones of the hearth and other safety deposit places--wherever the child had deemed it expedient to keep his treasures. Sometimes, however, this treasure was in the custody of older persons, and the obtaining of it had presented difficulties.