As he had warned her that he might be gone a long time, he knew she would not be alarmed for him--and she had already proved that timidity about herself was not in her nature.
But he was alarmed for her--this girl alone in that lonely darkness--with light enough to make her visible to any prowler.
About an hour after he left her he returned in a rowboat he had borrowed at the water mill.

He hitched the horse in the deep shadow of the break in the bank.

She got into the boat, put on the slip and the sunbonnet, put her sailor hat in the bag.

They pushed off and he began the long hard row across and upstream.
The moon was high now and was still near enough to its full glory to pour a flood of beautiful light upon the broad river--the lovely Ohio at its loveliest part.
"Won't you sing ?" he asked.
And without hesitation she began one of the simple familiar love songs that were all the music to which the Sutherland girls had access.

She sang softly, in a deep sweet voice, sweeter even than her speaking voice.