nd it hard to see her
tiptoeing over cares which swallowed them. She did not realize that
maids desired to marry and she took their lovers from them.

But knowledge grew in her as she sat holding the stranger's head in
her lap, though it was not a day on which to trouble one's self with
knowledge. There was only the forest's voice outside, that ceaseless
majestic hymn of the trees, accompanied by the shore ripple, which was
such a little way off. Languors like the sweet languors of spring came
over her. She was happier than she had ever been before in her life.

"It is delicious," she thought. "I have been in the cave many times, but
it will never be like this again."

And it was a strange joy to find the touch of a human being something
to delight in. There was sweet wickedness in it; penance might have to
follow. What would the cure say if he saw her? To amuse one's self with
soldiers and islanders was one thing; to sit tranced all day in a cave
with a stranger must be another.

There was a rough innocence in his relaxed body--beautiful as the virgin
softness of a girl. Under the spell of his unconscious domination, she
did not care about his past. Her own past was nothing. She had arrived
in the present. Time stood still. His face was turned towards her, and
she studied all its curves, yet knew if he had other features he would
still be the one person in the world who could so draw her. What was the
power? Had women elsewhere felt it? At that thought she had a pang of
anguish and rage altogether new to her. Marianson was tender even in her
amusements; her benevolence extended to dumb cattle; but in the hidden
darkness of her consciousness she found herself choosing the Sioux for
him, rather than a woman.

Once he half raised his head, but again let it sink to its rest.
Marianson grew faint; and as the light waned at the cave mouth she
remembered she had not eaten anything that day. The fast made her seem
fit to say prayers, and she said all she knew over his head, like a
mother brooding.

He startled her by sitting up, without warning, fully roused and alert.

"What time is it?" inquired the boy.

"Look at the door. The sun has long been behind the trees."

"Have I slept all day?"

"Perhaps."

"And have you heard no sound of battle?"

"It has been still as the village street during mass."

"What, then, have they done, those English? They must have taken the
fort without firing a gun. And the Sioux-you