Ruth discovered that Darrin had gone on the afternoon of his going. She went down to his camp by the spring with an eagerness of anticipation which she did not admit even to herself; and when she saw that he was not there she was at once relieved and unhappy.
The girl had stopped on the knoll above the camp; and she stood there for a moment looking all about, thinking Darrin might be somewhere near. Then she marked the careful order of the spot, and saw that all the camp gear was stowed away; and abruptly she guessed what had happened. She ran then down the knoll, and so came almost at once upon the note he had left for her.
She read this through, frowning and puzzling a little over the intricacies of his handwriting; and she did not know whether to be unhappy over his going or happy that he had remembered to leave this word for her. She did not press the scribbled note against her bosom, but she did read it through a second time, and then refold it carefully, and then take it out and read it yet again. In the end it was still in her hand when she turned reluctantly back up the hill. She put it in the top drawer of her bureau in her room.
She told John and Evered at suppertime that Darrin was gone. Evered seemed like a man relieved of a burden, till she added, “He’s coming back again, though.”
John bent over his plate, hiding the hurt in his eyes. The girl told him of the camera set in the swamp, and John promised to go and fetch it, and to bring Darrin’s other belongings under shelter in the woodshed or the barn.
He managed this the next day; and Ruth made occasion to go to the barn more than once for the sheer happiness of looking upon them. John caught her at it once; but he did not let her know that he had seen. The young man was in these days woefully unhappy.
It is fair to say that he had reason to be. Ruth was kind to him, never spoke harshly or in an unfriendly fashion; in fact, she was almost too friendly. There was a finality about her friendliness which baffled him and erected a barrier between him and her. The man tried awkwardly to bring matters back to the old sweet footing between them; but the girl was of nimbler wit than he. She put him off without seeming to do so; she erected an impassable defense about herself.
