With
that mother tenderness belonging to all true women, she stooped and
softly kissed the disfigured face upon the pillow. At the touch, Myra
Willard stirred uneasily; and the girl--careful to make no
sound--withdrew.
On the porch, she again took up her violin as if to play; but, instead,
sat motionless--her face turned down the canyon--her eyes looking far
away. Then, quickly, she put aside the instrument, and--as though with
sudden yielding to some inner impulse--slipped out into the grassy yard.
And there, in the moon's white light,--with only the mountains, the trees,
and the flowers to see,--she danced, again, as she had danced before the
artist in the glade--with her face turned down the canyon, and her arms
outstretched, longingly, toward the camp in the sycamores back of the old
orchard.
Suddenly, from the room where Myra Willard slept, came that shuddering,
terror-stricken cry.
The girl, fleet-footed as a deer, ran into the house. Kneeling, she put
her strong young arms about the cowering, trembling form on the bed.
"There, there, dear, it's all right."
The woman of the disfigured face caught Sibyl's hand, impulsively.
"I--I--was dreaming again," she whispered, "and--and this time--O
Sibyl--this time, I dreamed that it was _you_.
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