s surely would be the result were I to marry you without love. Let us
wait until I know myself better. Though you have spoken to me of the
matter before, I realize now that I never have made any effort to
determine whether or not I really can love you. There is time enough
before we reach civilization, if ever we are fortunate enough to do so
at all. Will you not be as generous as you are brave, and give me a
few days before I must make you a final answer?"

With Professor Maxon's solemn promise to insure his ultimate success
von Horn was very gentle and gracious in deferring to the girl's
wishes. The girl for her part could not put from her mind the
disappointment she had felt when she discovered that her rescuer was
von Horn, and not the handsome young giant whom she had been positive
was in close pursuit of her abductors.

When Number Thirteen had been mentioned she had always pictured him as
a hideous monster, similar to the creature that had seized her in the
jungle beside the encampment that first day she had seen the mysterious
stranger, of whom she could obtain no information either from her
father or von Horn. When she had recently insisted that the same man
had been at the head of her father's creatures in an attempt to rescue
her, both von Horn and Professor Maxon scoffed at the idea, until at
last she was convinced that the fright and the firelight had conspired
to conjure in her brain the likeness of one who was linked by memory to
another time of danger and despair.

Virginia could not understand why it was that the face of the stranger
persisted in obtruding itself in her memory. That the man was
unusually good looking was undeniable, but she had known many good
looking men, nor was she especially impressionable to mere superficial
beauty. No words had passed between them on the occasion of their
first meeting, so it could have been nothing that he said which caused
the memory of him to cling so tenaciously in her mind.

What was it then? Was it the memory of the moments that she had lain
in his strong arms--was it the shadow of the sweet, warm glow that had
suffused her as his eyes had caught hers upon his face?

The thing was tantalizing--it was annoying. The girl blushed in
mortification at the very thought that she could cling so resolutely to
the memory of a total stranger, and--still greater humiliation--long in
the secret depths of her soul to see him again.

She was angry with hers