"Do you think we shall find the castle with a window for every day in
the year?" the tinker asked at last.

"Aye. Why not? And we'll be as happy as I can tell ye, and twice as
happy as ye can tell me. Doesn't every lad and lass find it anew for
themselves when they take to the long road with naught but love and
trust in their hearts--and their hands together? They may find it
when they're young--they may not find it till they're old--but it
will be there, ever beckoning them on--with the purple hills rising
toward it. And there's a miracle in the castle that I've never told
ye: no matter how old and how worn and how stooped the lad and his
lass may have grown, there he sees her only fresh and fair and she
sees him only brave and straight and strong."

She stopped and faced him, her hands slipping out of his and creeping
up to his shoulders and about his neck. "Dear lad--promise me one
thing!--promise me we shall never forget the road! No matter how
snugly we may be housed, or how close comfort and happiness sit at
our hearthside--we'll be faring forth just once in so often--to touch
earth again. And we'll help to keep faith in human nature--aye, and
simple-hearted kindness alive in the world; and we'll make our
friends by reason of that and not because of the gold we may or may
not be having."

"And do you still think kindness is the greatest thing in the world?"

"No. There is one thing better; but kindness tramps mortal close at
its heels." Patsy's hands slipped from his shoulders; she clasped
them together in sudden intensity. "Haven't ye any curiosity at all
to know what fetched me after ye?"

"Yes. But there is to-morrow--and all the days after--to tell me."

"No, there is just to-day. The telling of it is the only wedding-gift
I have for ye, dear lad. I was with Marjorie Schuyler in the den that
day you came to her and told her."

"You heard everything?"

"Aye."

"And you came, believing in me, after all?"

"I came to show you there was one person in the world who trusted
you, who would trust you across the world and back again. That's all
the wedding-gift I have for ye, dear, barring love."

And then and there--in the open road, still a good three miles from
the Arden church--the tinker gathered her close in the embrace he had
kept for her so long.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,