Natalie nodded, a starry look in her far-away eyes.

“Nat,” said Lew, “tell me about it—­about Nadir—­about—­about everything.  About how you went back to Consolation Cottage.”

Natalie flashed a look at him.

“How did you know we had been back to Consolation Cottage?”

“Why, I went there,” said Lewis.  “It isn’t three months since I went there.”

“Did you, Lew?” said Natalie, her face brightening.  “Did you go just to look for us?”

“Of course,” said Lewis.  “Now tell me.”

“No,” said Natalie, with a shake of her head, “you first.”

CHAPTER XLV

In the innocence of that first hour Lewis told Natalie all.  He even told her of Folly, as though Folly, like all else, was something they could share between them.  Natalie did not wince.  There are blows that just sting—­the sharp, quick blows that make us cry out, and then wonder why we cried, so quickly does the pain pass.  They are nothing beside the blows that slowly fall and crush and keep their pain back till the overwhelming last.

People wonder at the cruel punishment a battered man can take and never cry out, at the calm that fills the moment of life after the mortal wound, and at the steady, quiet gaze of big game stricken unto death.  They do not know that when the blood of man or beast is up, when the heart thunders fast in conflict or in the chase, there is no pain.  A man can get so excited over some trifle that a bullet will plow through his flesh without his noticing it.  Pain comes afterward.  Pain is always an awakening.

Natalie was excited at the sudden presence of Lew and at the wonder of his tale.  In that galaxy of words that painted to her a climbing fairy movement of growth and achievement the single fact of Folly shot through her and away, but the wound stayed.  For the moment she did not know that she was stricken, nor did Lewis guess.  And so it happened that that whole day passed like a flash of happy light.

Natalie, in her wisdom, had gone ahead to warn Mrs. Leighton and mammy of Lewis’s coming.  Even so, when the two women took him into their long embrace, he knew by the throbbing of their hearts how deeply joy can shake foundations that have stood firm against the heaviest shocks of grief.

Gip and the cart, with Natalie at the helm, whisked Lewis back to the homestead.  What memories of galloping ponies and a far, wide world that ride awakened they did not speak in words, but the light that was in their faces when at the homestead gate they said good night was the light that shines for children walking hand in hand in the morning land of faith.

Natalie could not eat that night.  She slipped away early to bed—­to the little, old-fashioned bed that had been Aunt Jed’s.  It, too, was a four-poster; but so pompous a name overweighted its daintiness.  So light were its trimmings in white, so snowy the mounds of its pillows and the narrow reach of its counterpane, that it seemed more like a nesting-place for untainted dreams than the sensible, stocky little bed it was.