ll over."

Conrad Lagrange received her words with mingled emotions--with pleased
delight at her ingenuous frankness; with bitter shame, sorrow, and
humiliation and, at the last, with genuine gladness and relief. "I knew
it"--he said triumphantly--"I knew it. It was because of my books that you
were so afraid of me?" He asked eagerly, as one would ask to have a deep
conviction verified.

"You see," she said,--smiling at the manner of his words,--"I did not know
that an author _could_ be so different from the things he writes about."
Then, with a puzzled air--"But why do you write the horrid things that
spoil my music and make me afraid? Why don't you write as you
talk--about--about the mountains? Why don't you make books
like--like"--she seemed to be searching for a word, and smiled with
pleasure when she found it--"like yourself?"

"Listen"--said the novelist impressively, taking refuge in his fanciful
humor--"listen--I'll tell you a secret that must always be for just you
and me--you like secrets don't you?"--anxiously.

She laughed with pleasure--responding instantly to his mood. "Of course I
like secrets."

He nodded approval. "I was sure you did. Now listen--I am not really
Conrad Lagrange, the man who wrote those books that hurt you so--not when
I am here in your rose garden, or when I am listening to your music, or
when I am away up there in your mountains, you know. It is only when I am
in the unclean world that reads and likes my books that I am the man who
wrote them."

Her eyes shone with quick understanding. "Of course," she agreed, "you
_couldn't_ be _that_ kind of a man, and love the music, and like to be
here among the roses or up in the mountains, could you?"

"No, and I'll tell you something else that goes with our secret. Your name
is not really Sibyl Andres, you know--any more than you really live over
there in that little house. Your real home is in the mountains--just as
you said--you _really_ live among the glowing peaks, under the dark pines,
on the ridges, and in the purple shadows of the canyons. You only come
down here to the Fairlands folk with a message from your mountains--and
_we_ call your message music. Your name is--"

She was leaning forward, her face glowing with eagerness. "What is my
name?"

"What can it be but 'Nature'," he said softly. "That's it, 'Nature'."

"And you? Who are you when you are not--when you are not in that other
world?"

"Me? Oh, my real name is 'Civi