away as if there was nothing more to be said.

"Is this all I am to hear from you, Rima--these few words?" I exclaimed.
"So much did you say to your grandfather, so much to your dead mother,
but to me you say so little!"

She turned again, and with eyes cast down replied:

"He deceived me--I had to tell him that, and then to pray to mother.
But to you that do not understand, what can I say? Only that you are not
like him and all those that I knew at Voa. It is so different--and the
same. You are you, and I am I; why is it--do you know?"

"No; yes--I know, but cannot tell you. And if you find your people, what
will you do--leave me to go to them? Must I go all the way to Riolama
only to lose you?"

"Where I am, there you must be."

"Why?"

"Do I not see it there?" she returned, with a quick gesture to indicate
that it appeared in my face.

"Your sight is keen, Rima--keen as a bird's. Mine is not so keen. Let me
look once more into those beautiful wild eyes, then perhaps I shall see
in them as much as you see in mine."

"Oh no, no, not that!" she murmured in distress, drawing away from me;
then with a sudden flash of brilliant colour cried:

"Have you forgotten the compact--the promise you made me?"

Her words made me ashamed, and I could not reply. But the shame was
as nothing in strength compared to the impulse I felt to clasp her
beautiful body in my arms and cover her face with kisses. Sick with
desire, I turned away and, sitting on a root of the tree, covered my
face with my hands.

She came nearer: I could see her shadow through my fingers; then her
face and wistful, compassionate eyes.

"Forgive me, dear Rima," I said, dropping my hands again. "I have tried
so hard to please you in everything! Touch my face with your hand--only
that, and I will go to Riolama with you, and obey you in all things."

For a while she hesitated, then stepped quickly aside so that I could
not see her; but I knew that she had not left me, that she was standing
just behind me. And after waiting a moment longer I felt her fingers
touching my skin, softly, trembling over my cheek as if a soft-winged
moth had fluttered against it; then the slight aerial touch was gone,
and she, too, moth-like, had vanished from my side.

Left alone in the wood, I was not happy. That fluttering, flattering
touch of her finger-tips had been to me like spoken language, and more
eloquent than language, yet the sweet assurance it conveyed had not