"
He displayed his recovered property as if to verify his words--a brown
leather pocketbook with a silver clasp. Priscilla gazed from it to its
owner in startled silence. Her heart was beating almost to suffocation.
She knew this man.
The water babbled on between them, singing a little tinkling song all
its own. But the girl neither saw nor heard aught of her surroundings.
She was back in the heat and whirl of a crowded New York thoroughfare,
back in the fierce grip of this man's arms, hearing his quiet voice
above her head, bidding her not to be frightened.
Gradually the vision passed. The wild tumult at her heart died down. She
became aware that he was waiting for her to speak, and she did so as one
in a dream.
"I am glad you got it back," she said.
His brown, clean-shaven face smiled at her, but there was no hint of
recognition in his eyes. He had totally forgotten her, of course, as she
had always told herself he would. Did not men always forget? And
yet--and yet--was he not still her hero--the man for whose sake all
other men were less than naught to her?
Again Romeo growled deeply, and she tightened her hold upon him. The
stranger, however, appeared quite unimpressed. He stood up and
contemplated the stream that divided them with a measuring eye.
"Have I your permission to come across?" he asked her finally, in his
soft Southern drawl.
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