d never have known the play in its present form.
Truedale's ideal had always been to portray a free woman--a super-woman;
one who had evolved into the freedom from shattered chains. He now had a
heroine free, in that she had never been enslaved. If one greater than
he had put a soul in a statue, Truedale believed that he could awaken a
child of nature and show her her own beautiful soul. He had outlined, a
time back, a sylvan Galatea; and now, as he sat in the still room, the
framework assumed form and substance; it breathed and moved him
divinely. It and he were alone in the universe; they were to begin the
world--he and--

Just then the advance messenger of the coming change of weather entered
by way of a lowered window. It was a smart little breeze and it
flippantly sent the ashes flying on the hearth and several sheets of
paper broadcast in the room. Truedale sprang to recover his treasures;
he caught four or five, but one escaped his notice and floated toward
the door, which was ajar.

"Whew!" he ejaculated, "that was a narrow escape," and he began to sort
and arrange the sheets on the table.

"Sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two. Now where in thunder is that sixty-three?"

A light touch on his arm made him spring to his feet, every nerve
a-tingle.

"Here it is! It seemed like it came to meet me."

"Nella-Rose!"

The girl nodded, holding out the paper.

"So you have come? Why--did you?"

The dimples came into play and Truedale stood watching them while many
emotions flayed him; but gradually his weakness passed and he was able
to assume an extremely stern though kindly manner. He meant to set the
child right; he meant to see _only_ the _child_ in her until White
returned; he would ignore the perilously sweet woman-appeal to his
senses until such time as he could, with safety, let them once more hold
part in their relations with each other.

But even as he arrived at this wise conclusion, he was noting, as often
before he had noted, the fascinating colour and quality of Nella-Rose's
hair. It was both dark and light. If smoke were filled with sunlight it
would be something like the mass of more or less loosened tendrils that
crowned the girl's pretty head. Stern resolve began to melt before the
girlish sweetness and audacity, but Truedale made one last struggle; he
thought of staunch and true Brace Kendall! And, be it to Brace Kendall's
credit, the course Conning endeavoured to take was a wise one.

"See here,