Rachael, with a few casual pushes of a sturdy little shoe, accomplished such surprising results in freeing and directing the stream that she fell upon it in sudden serious earnest, grasping a long pole the better to push obstructing matters aside, and growing rosy and breathless over her self-imposed and senseless undertaking.

She had just loosened a whole tangle of wreckage, and had straightened herself up with a long, triumphant “Ah-h!” of relief, as the current rushed it away, when a shadow fell over the mouth of the cave.  Looking about in quick, instinctive fear, she saw Warren Gregory smiling at her.

For only one second she hesitated, all girlhood’s radiant shyness in her face.  Then she was in his arms, and clinging to him, and for a few minutes they did not speak, eyes and lips together in the wild rapture of meeting.

“Oh, Greg—­Greg—­Greg!” Rachael laughed and cried and sang the words together.  “When did you come, and how did you get here?  Tell me—­tell me all about it!” But before he could begin to answer her their eager joy carried them both far away from all the conversational landmarks, and again they had breath only for monosyllables, instinct only to cling to each other.

“My girl, my own girl!” Warren Gregory said.  “Oh, how I’ve missed you—­and you’re more beautiful than ever—­did you know it?  More beautiful even than I remembered you to be, and that was beautiful enough!”

“Oh, hush!” she said, laughing, her fingers over the mouth that praised her, his arm still holding her tight.

“I’ll never hush again, my darling!  Never, never in all the years we spend together!  I am going to tell you a hundred times a day that you are the most beautiful, and the dearest—­Oh, Rachael, Rachael, shall I tell you something?  It’s October!  Do you know what that means?”

“Yes, I suppose I do!” She laughed, and colored exquisitely, drawing herself back the length of their linked arms.

“Do you know what you’re going to be in about thirty-six hours?”

“Now—­you embarrass me!  Was—­was anything settled?”

“Shall you like being Mrs. Gregory?”

“Greg—­” Tears came to her eyes.  “You don’t know how much!” she said in a whisper.

They sat down on a great log, washed silver white with long years of riding unguided through the seas, and all the wonderful world of blue sky and white sand might have been made for them.  Rachael’s hand lay in her lover’s, her glorious eyes rarely left his face.  Browned by his summer of travel, she found him better than ever to look upon; hungry after these waiting months, every tone of his voice held for her a separate delight.

“Did you ever dream of happiness like this, Rachael?”

“Never—­never in my wildest flights.  Not even in the past few months!”

“What—­didn’t trust me?”

“No, not that.  But I’ve been rebuilding, body and soul.  I didn’t think of the future or the past.  It was all present.”