el, tremendously. It stirs what is wild in me--deep down--oh, very
deep down,--yet at the same time makes me feel afraid."

"I suppose his thoughts are always playing about you," I said, "but he's
nice-minded and--"

"Yes, yes," she interrupted impatiently, "I can trust myself absolutely
with him. He's gentle and singularly pure-minded. But there's something
else that--" She stopped again sharply to listen. Then she came up close
beside me in the darkness, whispering--

"You know, Mr. Hubbard, sometimes my intuitions warn me a little too
strongly to be ignored. Oh, yes, you needn't tell me again that it's
difficult to distinguish between fancy and intuition. I know all that.
But I also know that there's something deep down in that man's soul that
calls to something deep down in mine. And at present it frightens me.
Because I cannot make out what it is; and I know, I _know_, he'll do
something some day that--that will shake my life to the very bottom."
She laughed a little at the strangeness of her own description.

I turned to look at her more closely, but the darkness was too great to
show her face. There was an intensity, almost of suppressed passion, in
her voice that took me completely by surprise.

"Nonsense, Joan," I said, a little severely; "you know him well. He's
been with your father for months now."

"But that was in London; and up here it's different--I mean, I feel that
it may be different. Life in a place like this blows away the restraints
of the artificial life at home. I know, oh, I know what I'm saying. I
feel all untied in a place like this; the rigidity of one's nature
begins to melt and flow. Surely _you_ must understand what I mean!"

"Of course I understand," I replied, yet not wishing to encourage her in
her present line of thought, "and it's a grand experience--for a short
time. But you're overtired to-night, Joan, like the rest of us. A few
days in this air will set you above all fears of the kind you mention."

Then, after a moment's silence, I added, feeling I should estrange her
confidence altogether if I blundered any more and treated her like a
child--

"I think, perhaps, the true explanation is that you pity him for loving
you, and at the same time you feel the repulsion of the healthy,
vigorous animal for what is weak and timid. If he came up boldly and
took you by the throat and shouted that he would force you to love
him--well, then you would feel no fear at all. You would kno