never done in her
days of brightness and laughter.

"Listen to me," he said, pleadingly. "I won't worry you. I know you are
too weak and ill to decide yet about your future. I don't ask you to
answer me now. Wait. Go to school, as I know you intend to do; but don't
forget me. After the school is over you can decide. I will wait with all
patience. I would not have told you now, but I wanted you to know I was
interested in the answer you would give Haydon. I wanted you to know that
I would not for the world advise you, but for your best interests. Won't
you believe--"

"I believe you; but I don't know what to say to you. You are different
from me--your people are different. And of my people you know nothing,
nothing at all, and--"

"And it makes no difference," he interrupted. "I know you have had a lot
of trouble for a little girl, or your family have had trouble you are
sensitive about. I don't know what it is, but it makes no difference--not
a bit. I will never question about it, unless you prefer to tell of your
own accord. Oh, my dear! if some day you could be my wife, I would help
you forget all your childish troubles and your unpleasant life."

"Let us go home," she said, "you are good to me, but I am so tired."

He obediently turned the canoe, and at that moment voices came to them
from toward the river--ringing voices of men.

"It is possibly Mr. Haydon and others," he exclaimed, after listening a
moment. "We have been expecting them for days. That was why I could no
longer put off giving you the letter."

"I know," she said, and her face flushed and paled a little, as the voices
came closer. He could see she nervously dreaded the meeting.

"Shall I get the canoe back to camp before they come?" he asked kindly;
but she shook her head.

"You can't, for they move fast," she answered, as she listened. "They
would see us; and, if he is with them, he--would think I was afraid."

He let the canoe drift again, and watched her moody face, which seemed to
grow more cold with each moment that the strangers came closer. He was
filled with surprise at all she had said of Haydon and of the letter. Who
would have dreamed that she--the little Indian-dressed guest of Akkomi's
camp--would be connected with the most exclusive family he knew in the
East? The Haydon family was one he had been especially interested in only
a year ago, because of Mr. Haydon's very charming daughter. Miss Haydon,
however, had a clever and a