I will not accept the hideous skeleton you have
hung before me. Con, I have never really known but five men in my life;
but women--women have lain heart deep along my way ever since--I learned
to know my mother! Not only for yourself, but for that girl who drifted
into your solitude, I demand light--all that you can give me!"

And now Truedale breathed hard and the muscles of his face twitched. He
was about to lay bare the inscrutable, the holy thing of his life,
fearing that even the woman near him could not be just. He had accepted
his own fate, so he thought; he meant not to whine or complain, but how
was he to live his life if Lynda failed to agree with him--where
Nella-Rose was concerned?

"Will you--can you--do what I ask, Con?"

"Yes--in a minute."

"You--loved her? She loved you--Con?" Lynda strove to smooth the way,
not so much for Truedale as for herself.

"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