They would go as he had planned to go, quietly,
unobtrusively; they would slip away and disappear. There was a reason
why no one should know, not even McDowell. It must be their secret.
Some day he would tell her why. Her heart thumped excitedly as he went
on like a boy planning a wonderful day. He could see the swifter beat
of it in the flush that rose into her face and the joy glowing
tremulously in her eyes as she looked at him. They would get ready
quietly. They might go tomorrow, the next day, any time. It would be a
glorious adventure, just they two, with all the vastness of that
mountain paradise ahead of them.
"We'll be pals," he said. "Just you and me, Mary Josephine. We're all
that's left."
It was his first experiment, his first reference to the information he
had gained in the letters, and swift as a flash Mary Josephine's eyes
turned up to him. He nodded, smiling. He understood their quick
questioning, and he held her hand closer and began to walk with her
down the slope.
"A lot of it came back last night and this morning, a lot of it," he
explained. "It's queer what miracles small things can work sometimes,
isn't it? Think what a grain of sand can do to a watch! This was one of
the small things.
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