The tinker threw back his head and laughed as of old. "What will poor
old Greg say when he finds it gone? Oh, I know how you almost stole
his faithful old heart by being so pitying of his friend--and how you
made the sign for him to follow--"

"Aye," agreed Patsy, "but what of the cottage?"

"That belongs to Greg's father; he and the girls are West this
summer, so the cottage was closed."

"And the breakfast with the throstles and the lady's-slippers?"

The tinker laid his finger over her lips. "Please, sweetheart--don't
try to steal away all the magic and the poetry from our road. You
will leave it very barren if you do--'I'm thinking.'"

Silence held their tongues until curiosity again loosened Patsy's.
"And what started ye on the road in rags? Ye have never really
answered that."

"I have never honestly wanted to; it is not a pleasant answer." He
drew Patsy closer, and his hands closed over hers. "Promise you will
never think of it again, that you and I will forget that part of the
road--after to-day?"

Patsy nodded.

"I borrowed the rags so that it would take a pretty smart coroner to
identify the person in it after the train had passed under the
suspension-bridge from which he fell--by accident. Don't shudder,
dear. Was it so terrible--that wish to get away from a world that
held nothing, not even some one to grieve? Remember, when I started
there wasn't a soul who believed in me, who would care much one way
or another--unless, perhaps, poor old Greg."

"Would ye mind letting me look at the marriage license? I'd like to
be seeing it written down."

The tinker produced it, and she read "William Burgeman." Then she
added, with a stubborn shake of the head, "Mind, though, I'll not be
rich."

"You will not have to be. Father has left me absolutely nothing for
ten years; after that I can inherit his money or not, as we choose.
It's a glorious arrangement. The money is all disposed of to good
civic purpose, if we refuse. I am very glad it's settled that way;
for I'm afraid I would never have had the heart to come to you, dear,
dragging all those millions after me."

"Then it is a free, open road for the both of us; and, please Heaven!
we'll never misuse it." She laughed joyously; some day she would tell
him of her meeting with his father; life was too full now for that.

The tinker fell into his old swinging stride that Patsy had found so
hard to keep pace with; and silence again held their tongues.