She had walked up the road ahead of Billy, her black scholar’s gown fluttering.  Once, he would have run to overtake her, but now he plodded along a block behind, without a sound.  Lydia did not pause at the cottage gate.  The call of the robin was in her blood and she swung on up the road, past the Norton place, and into the woods.

Young April was there, with its silence a-tip-toe, and its warmth and chill.  Lydia drew a deep breath and paused where through the trunks of the white birches she caught the glimmer of the lake.  There was a log at hand and she sat down, threw her mortar-board on the ground and rested, chin cupped in her hands, lips parted, eyes tear dimmed.  She was weary of thought.  She only knew that the spiritual rightness with which she had sustained her mind and body through all the hard years of her youth, had gone wrong.  She only knew that a loneliness of soul she could not seem to endure was robbing her of a youth that as yet she had scarcely tasted.

She sat without stirring.  The blue of the lake began to turn orange.  The robin’s note grew fainter.  Suddenly there was the sound of hasty footsteps through the dead leaves.  Lydia looked up.  Billy was striding toward her.  She did not speak, nor did he.  It seemed to her that she never had noticed before how mature Billy’s face was in its new gauntness, nor how deep and direct was his gaze.

He strode up to the log, stooped, and drew Lydia to her feet.  Then he lifted her, scholar’s gown and all, in his arms and kissed her full on the lips, kissed her long and passionately, then looked deep into her eyes and held her to him until she could feel his heart beating full and quick.

For just a moment, Lydia did not stir, then she threw her arms around his neck, hid her face against his shoulder and clung to him with an intensity that made him tremble.

The robin’s note grew sweeter, fainter.  The lake lap-lapped beyond the birches.  Billy slipped his hand under Lydia’s cheek and turned her face so that he could look into her eyes.  At what he saw there, his own firm lips quivered.

“Lydia!” he whispered.

Then he kissed her again.

Lydia freed herself from his arms, though he kept both of her hands in his.

“Now,” he said gently, with a smile of a quality Lydia never had seen on his lips before, “now, sweetheart, are you going to be good?”

“Yes,” murmured Lydia, with the contralto lilt in her voice.  “What do you want me to do.  Billy?”

“I want what you want, dearest.  I want the old Lydia with the vision.  Has she come back, or shall I have to look for her again?”

He started as if to take Lydia in his arms once more, but with a sudden rich little laugh, she stepped away from him.

“She’s here—­Oh, Billy, dearest!  How could you let her wander around alone so long.”

“It didn’t hurt my cause any for her to miss me,” answered Billy, grimly, “though I didn’t realize that till a moment ago.  Stop your trembling, Lydia.  I’m here to look out for you, for the rest of time.”