musingly. She drew it back slowly. He was then thinking that it was the
most intelligent hand he had ever seen. . . . He determined to play a
bold and surprising game. He had learned from her the alphabet of the
fingers--that is, how to spell words. He knew little gesture-language.
He, therefore, spelled slowly: "Hawley is angry, because you love
Hilton." The statement was so matter-of-fact, so sudden, that the girl
had no chance. She flushed and then paled. She shook her head firmly,
however, and her fingers slowly framed the reply: "You guess too much.
Foolish things come to the idle."

"I saw you this afternoon," he silently urged.

Her fingers trembled slightly. "There was nothing to see." She knew he
could not have read her gestures. "I was telling a story."

"You ran from him--why?" His questioning was cruel that he might in the
end be kind.

"The child runs from its shadow, the bird from its nest, the fish jumps
from the water--that is nothing." She had recovered somewhat.

But he: "The shadow follows the child, the bird comes back to its nest,
the fish cannot live beyond the water. But it is sad when the child, in
running, rushes into darkness, and loses its shadow; when the nest falls
from the tree; and the hawk catches the happy fish. . . . Hawley saw
you also."

Hawley, like Ida, was deaf and dumb. He lived over the mountains, but
came often. It had been understood that, one day, she should marry him.
It seemed fitting. She had said neither yes nor no. And now?