“Yes,” she answered.  “You called me and I came—­for always.”

“Were you meaning that you’d face the storms and the cold with me, and take no heed of the rain—­that you’d live on the coarse fare I could pick up from day to day, and never mind it?”

“Yes, I meant all that.”

“Were you meaning, perhaps, that you’d make a home for me?  Ah, Spinner in the Sun, it takes a woman to make a home!”

“Yes, I’d make a home, or go gypsying with you, just as you chose.”

The Piper laughed, with inexpressible tenderness.  “You know, I’m thinking, that ’t would be a home, and not gypsying—­that I’d not let you face anything I could shield you from.”

Evelina laughed, too—­a low, sweet laugh.  “Yes, I know,” she said.

The Piper turned away, struggling with temptation.  At length he came back to her. “’T is wrong of me, I’m thinking, but I take you as a man takes Heaven, and we’ll do the work together.  ’T is as though I had risen from the dead and the gates of pearl were open, with all the angels of God beckoning me in.”

In the exaltation that was upon him, he had no thought of profaning her by a touch.  She stood apart from him as something high and holy, enthroned in a sacred place.

“Beloved,” he pleaded, “will you be coming; with me now to the place where I saw you first?  ’T is night now, and then ’twas day, but I’m thinking the words are wrong.  ’T is day now, with the sun and moon and stars all shining at once and suns that I never saw before.  Will you come?”

“I’ll go wherever you lead me,” she answered.  “While you hold my hand in yours, I can never be afraid.”

They went through the night together, taking the shorter way over the hills.  She stumbled and he took her hand, his own still trembling.  “Close your beautiful eyes,” he whispered, “and trust me to lead you.”

Though she did not close her eyes, she gave herself wholly to his guidance, noting how he chose for himself the rougher places to give her the easier path.  He pushed aside the undergrowth before her, lifted her gently over damp hollows, and led her around the stones.

At last they came to the woods that opened out upon the upper river road, where she had stood the day she had been splashed with mud from Anthony Dexter’s wheels, and, at the same instant, had heard the mysterious flutings from afar.  They entered near the hill to which her long wandering had led her, and at the foot of it, the Piper paused.

“You’ll have no fear, I’m thinking, since the moon makes the clearing as bright as day, and I’ll not be letting you out of my sight.  I have a fancy to stand upon yonder level place and call you as I called you once before.  Only, this time, the heart of me will dance to my own music, for I know you’ll be coming all the while I play.”

He left her and clambered up the hill to the narrow ledge which sloped back, and was surrounded with pines.  He kept in the open spaces, so that the moonlight was always upon him, and she did not lose sight of him more than once or twice, and then only for a moment.  The hill was not a high one and the ascent was very gradual.  Within a few minutes, he had gained his place.