he
reproved him, and to his ears there seemed to be something of irony and
something of mirth in her smooth, cool tones.

"Then you shall not clasp me in your arms till I am sure of myself and
you."

Robert wrestled with an unwelcome sense of reverence. Surely it was
madness to be baffled by a country maid. He held out his comely hands,
he commanded every appealing intonation of his musical voice.

"Child," he cried, "you shall not deny me now. I am your hunter, sweet,
and you my quarry. Be happy, being mine."

He moved upon her as he spoke, trusting to charm her with the spell of
speech that never yet had known defeat. But the girl stretched out her
hand to stay him, and he paused, angry and yet curious to see how far
she would carry contradiction.

"Stand back!" she said. "I am not afraid of love. I am not afraid of
you. But your voice is not the voice of the woods, and your eyes shine
with another light. You cannot snare me so."

He saw that she distrusted him; he saw that she did not fear him; he
knew that he had not won her, yet believed himself near to the winning.

"If you love me--" Robert cried.

The girl stretched out her arms to the wide sky in protest.

"If I love you!" Her arms dropped to her sides and she continued, sadly,
"I have dreamed of you very often, but I never dreamed of you thus."

"All lovers love fiercely," Robert insisted, passionately.

Perpetua shook her head. "I do not believe you."

Chafing to find himself so powerless to soften her, Robert made a
gesture of despair.

"Ah!" he sighed, "we waste irrevocable seconds that should be spent in
kisses."

Perpetua moved a little closer to him. The man's pain in his voice
stirred the woman's pity in her heart, and she spoke more tenderly than
she had spoken for some time.

"Hunter, if you love me, you shall tell my father your tale and he will
be your friend as he is mine, and we will marry and live and die in the
woodland."

She stood before him, beautiful as the living image of a goddess
offering herself to a mortal with Olympian simplicity. So might Oenone
have willed to wed with Paris. Robert stared at her, amazed, confounded.

"I cannot marry you," he protested. "You are the executioner's
daughter."

Now, indeed, the warm color of her cheeks grew warmer and her eyes
darkened with indignation.

"My father is a good and honest man, but were I the child of a robber,
were I a fosterling of a wolf of the woods, I am a woman