“Daddy always told me you were the finest gentleman in the world,” she said, “and I think he was right.”
He went away after that, leaving her to the happiness she was too tender-hearted to show him, and he said good-by cheerfully, unemotionally; but he went down the road, with white lips and unseeing eyes, and, when he appeared at the door of the shack, Mrs. Benderby, who was sitting there, rose in alarm at the sight of his face.
“Pegeen,” he said unsteadily. “I want Pegeen.”
Archibald’s walk had taken him Witch Hill way. Golden rod and wild asters were making merry along the roadside; and, in the wood’s heart, gleams of crimson and gold were glinting through the green. Summer was gone; but magic lingered; and the old enchantment worked in the man’s brain and heart. He had never followed that climbing road without the Smiling Lady at his side and his heart was sick for her, for the eyes with the sea waves in them, for the sun-kissed hair, and the smiling lips, and the singing voice, and all the warm gladness of her. He had known it would be like that; and yet he had come. There were days when wisdom did not wear the look of a virtue; and this afternoon, when Pegeen was busy with housework and even Wiggles had wandered away on important business of his own, the man who had been trying to be contented gave up trying and set out to keep tryst with memory, beside a hilltop well, where on a summer day a witch had sat, smiling and weaving spells.
He was in no hurry. There were mile-stones to count along the way. Here she had leaned to look into the brook; there she had stooped to mock a bird’s call. All the little green leaves whispered of her and the red and gold leaves flamed more warmly, remembering her. Archibald wondered whether he was sorry he had come—or glad. Glad, he thought; but it was a sorry gladness.
As he neared the top of the hill, he paused, half inclined to go back, without facing the empty seat under the old oak tree; but running away was a habit he had put aside. With a queer smile that was not gay, he quickened his steps, pushed aside the branches that had grown across the path, and came out into the open. There was the well. There was the great tree. And there, on the mossy bank, in the shadow, sat the witch, smiling and weaving spells!