He couldn't stop looking at her.    "Wait for me a little," he asked. “Jess?”

  And she answered, as he was certain she would without having to hear her say it : Yes.

      He turned away from her for the moment, away from the bench and into the warm hard wind blowing up the slope of the hill, making his mind up, just as if he hadn't made it up days ago, and when he looked quickly back, it seeming inevitable that he should do so, the blanket was gone and so was she.   But waiting close by, he had no doubt, as she'd said she was going to.

                                                  *      *      *

     "Standing close by that old bench, he is," John Perry told Myrtle.  "And talking at it.  I don't know."

     "Talking to Wal, I expect he thinks," Myrtle said, "and I've his supper to get.  Suppose he doesn't come down by dark?"

     "Then I'll go up there myself and fetch him, Myrtle.   Never you worry.   You go along, and we'll give him another half-hour."

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