Walking on soft leaf-mold he approached within twenty feet of her, unheard.  Then she lifted her head, looked about her.

“Bob!”

“Yes,” he answered.  He stopped.  She was looking at him.  She made an imperative gesture, and when Hollister still stood like a man transfixed, she came quickly to him, her eyes bright and eager, her hands outstretched.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.  “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Are you glad to see me?” he countered. “Do you see me?”

She shook her head.

“No, and probably I never shall,” she said evenly.  “But you’re here, and that’s just as good.  Things are still a blur.  My eyes will never be any better, I’m afraid.”

Hollister drew her close to him.  Her upturned lips sought his.  Her body pressed against him with a pleasant warmth, a confident yielding.  They stood silent a few seconds, Doris leaning against him contentedly, Hollister struggling with the flood of mingled sensations that swept through him on the heels of this vast relief.

“How your heart thumps,” Doris laughed softly.  “One would think you were a lover meeting his mistress clandestinely for the first time.”

“You surprised me,” Hollister took refuge behind a white lie.  He would not afflict her with that miasma of doubts and fears which had sickened him.  “I didn’t expect you till to-morrow afternoon.”

“I got tired of staying in town,” she said.  “There was no use.  I wasn’t getting any better, and I got so I didn’t care.  I began to feel that it was better to be here with you blind, than alone in town with that tantalizing half-sight of everything.  I suppose the plain truth is that I got fearfully lonesome.  Then you wrote me that letter, and in it you talked about such intimately personal things that I couldn’t let Mrs. Moore read it to me.  And I heard about this big fire you had here.  So I decided to come home and let my eyes take care of themselves.  I went to see another oculist or two.  They can’t tell whether my sight will improve or not.  It may go again altogether.  And nothing much can be done.  I have to take it as it comes.  So I planned to come home on the steamer to-morrow.  You got my letter, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I happened to get a chance to come as far as the Redondas on a boat belonging to some people I knew on Stuart Island.  I got a launch there to bring me up the Inlet, and Chief Aleck brought us up the river in the war canoe.  My, it’s good to be with you again.”

“Amen,” Hollister said.  There was a fervent quality in his tone.

They found a log and sat down on it and talked.  Hollister told her of the fire.  And when he saw that she had no knowledge of what tragedy had stalked with bloody footprints across the Big Bend, he put off telling her.  Presently she would ask about Myra, and he would have to tell her.  But in that hour he did not wish to see her grow sad.  He was jealous of anything that would inflict pain on her.  He wanted to shield her from all griefs and hurts.