"It is a lovely spot for such a meeting," I observed to Roderick as we went.
"Lovely indeed," he answered. "My eyes have hungered for a sight of it these ten years."
We walked on in silence toward it; Roderick taking off his hat that the breeze might blow through his hair, and drinking in the beauty around us with visible gratification.
"An exile's heart never warms in the land of the stranger," Roderick declared presently. "There's something in the native air that gladdens the soul."
"Now," I said, as we entered the beautiful glen, with its atmosphere of poetry, its softened, delicate loveliness, "here it was I first met Winifred, and here she shall meet you, and you can tell your tale your own way."
I had arranged matters a little melodramatically; Winifred unconsciously added to the effect by taking her seat upon her favorite tree, and, out of the pure gladness of her heart, singing a wild song full of trills and quavers like the notes of a bird. I slipped away among the trees, and presently Roderick spoke. His voice was soft and tender:
Winifred looked at him long and strangely for a few seconds, then she abandoned her perilous perch and came running down to him swift as a bird upon the wing. Nature was speaking very loud in her heart. Roderick stood waiting for her, holding out both his hands. He took her slender ones and held them, looking at her with a long, long look of tender affection; then, releasing his right hand, he took from his watch chain a locket and opened it. Within, I learned later, was a beautiful miniature on ivory. Winifred gave a swift, startled cry of joy:
"The lady in yellow--oh, it is the beautiful lady!"
"And I am the dark gentleman, my little one," Roderick whispered. "Do you know who he was?"
"Yes," said Winifred, looking up into his face: "he was my father."
"Have you forgiven him for being cross and slamming the door?"
"And are you going to love him--to love me very much?"
For answer, Winifred threw her arms round his neck, weeping for very joy.
At that moment I left them, and they followed slowly up to the castle, Winifred clinging to her father's arm and telling him how she had loved him almost from the first. And now a happy and complete confidence was already established between them.