"Yes! I found her in my cabin one day when I returned from a long tramp.
She had decked herself out in my bathrobe and the old fez. Not knowing
anything about me, she was horribly frightened when I came upon her. At
first she seemed nothing but a child--she took me by storm. We met in
the woods later. I read to her, taught her, played with her--I, who had
never played in my life before. Then suddenly she became a woman! She
knew no law but her own; she was full of courage and daring and a
splendid disregard for conventions as--as we all know them. For her,
they simply did not exist. I--I was willing and eager to cast my future
hopes of happiness with hers--God knows I was sincere in that!
"Then came a night of storm--such as this. Can you imagine it in the
black forests where small streams become rivers in a moment, carrying
all before them as they plunge and roar down the mountain sides? Dangers
of all sorts threatened and, in the midst of that storm, something
occurred that involved me! I had sent Nella-Rose--that was her
name--away earlier in the day. I could not trust myself. But she came
back to warn me. It meant risking everything, for her people were abroad
that night bent on ugly business; she had to betray them in order to
save me. To have turned her adrift would have meant death, or worse.
She remained with me nearly a week--she and I alone in that cabin and
cut off from the world--she and I! There was only myself to depend
upon--and, Lynda, I failed again!"
"But, Con--you meant to--to marry her; you meant that--from the first?"
Lynda had forgotten herself, her suffering.
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