don't you know me now?
I am Joan--come back to you--"

"No!" says I, "No--Damaris is dead and lost--I saw her die!"

"Then who am I, Martin?"

"The Spanish lady or--one of the ghosts do haunt me."

But now her hands were clasping mine, her soft hair all about me as she
stooped. And feeling these hands so warm and vital, so quick and
strong with life, I began to tremble and strove against her no longer;
and so she stooped above me that I might feel her sweet breath on
fevered cheek and brow:

"'Tis your Damaris, Martin," says she, her tears falling fast, "'tis
your comrade hath come back to comfort you."

Now seeing how I stared all trembling and amazed, she set her arms
about me, and drawing me to her bosom, clasped me there. And my head
pillowed thus I fell a-weeping, but these tears were tears of joy and
thankfulness beyond all words.

"O Damaris," quoth I at last, "if this be death I care not since I have
seen thee again!"

"Why, Martin," says she, weeping with me, "art indeed so glad--so glad
to find again thy poor comrade!"

And thus, knowing myself forgiven, a great joy sang within me.

CHAPTER XXXIX

HOW MY DEAR LADY CAME BACK TO ME

I was sitting in one of our armchairs amid the leafy shade watching her
knead dough with her two pretty fists. To this end she had rolled up
the sleeves of her splendid gown; and thus I, hearkening to her story,
must needs stare at her soft, round arms and yearn mightily to kiss
their velvety smoothness and, instantly be-rating myself therefor,
shifted my gaze from these temptations to my own unlovely figure,
contrasting myself and my worn garments with her rich attire and proud
and radiant beauty; she was again the great lady and far removed above
such poor wretch as I, for all her pitiful tenderness.

"... and so when I plunged from the rock," she was saying, "I never
thought to see this dear place again or the blessed sun! And I sank ...
O deep--deep! Then, Martin, I seemed to be caught in some current, far
down there in the darkness, that whirled and tossed me and swept me up
behind the torrent. And in the rock was a great cavern sloping to the
water, and there this current threw me, all breathless and nigh dead,
Martin."

"God be thanked!" says I fervently.

"And there I lay all night, Martin, very sick and fearful. When day
came I saw this great cave opened into a smaller and this into yet
another. So I came to a passage in the rock, and because t