red brokenly. "Theodomir! It--it can not be."

He fell to pacing the floor in violent agitation.

"The eyes are quieter," he said at length with an effort, "but the hair
and heard so white! I would not have guessed--I would not have
guessed!" Again he stared.

"Are you man or saint," he cried at last, "that you can forgive as I
have seen your eyes forgive to-night?"

"May a man look upon such remorse as that," asked Mic-co, "and not
forgive? I loved him greatly. Had I loved him less--had I loved her
less--that Indian wife who had no love in her heart for me, this hair
of mine would not have turned snow-white when the Indians were fanning
the flickering spark of life into a blaze again."

"There is peace in your face," said Tregar a little bitterly, "and none
of the old fretful discontent. Have you no single thought of regret
for that fair land of ours you left?"

"For that fatherland of rugged mountain and silver waterfall--yes!"
cried Theodomir with sudden fire. "For the festering core of
imperialism that darkens its beauty with sable wing--no! No single
thought of regret. How pitiful and absurd our Lilliputian game of
empire! What man is better than another? Tolstoi and Buddha, they are
the men who knew. Was not my wildest error," he demanded reverting
afresh to the other's reproach, "that homesick letter that brought him
to my side? Peace came to me, Tregar, in building this lodge, in
working in the field and hunting, in doctoring these primitive people
who saved my life, in teaching the child of my Indian wife--"

"The child of your wife! You mean your daughter?"

"I have no child," said Theodomir. "The girl you saw to-night is my
foster daughter, the child of my wife and the man for whose whim she
begged me to divorce her."

"No child!" exclaimed the Baron with a sickening flash of realization.
"My poor Ronador!"

"My kindness to her," said Mic-co, "was at first a discipline. Her
mother deserted her and the old chief granted me half her life. I
could not bear the touch of her hands or the look in her eyes for many
months, but through her, Tregar, at last I learned peace and
forgiveness and forbearance, as men should. I built the lodge for her
and me. I taught her the ways of her white father. I made myself
proficient in the English tongue that those traders and hunters and
naturalists who stray here might guess nothing of my origin. I shall
never again leave the peace and quiet of