couldn't have believed that the one who had passed
through such an ordeal could come forth more glorious than ever. But
the sacrifice was too much. However, it's done. Nay--never shake your
gory locks at me. Thou cans't not say I did it. But where is it all?"

"It? what?"

"As if you don't know! Why, the treasure that you threw
overboard--the child that you flung to the wolves, Russian mother!"

"Oh, you mean the hair! Why, I left it in there."

She pointed carelessly to the tower. At this Brooke went over and
entered it. He saw a mass of hair lying there on the stone floor,
where she had carelessly thrown it after cutting it off. This he
gathered up very carefully and even tenderly, picking up even small
scattered locks of it. Then he rolled it all up into the smallest
possible space, after which he bound it tight in his handkerchief and
put it in his pocket. He was, as usual, singing to himself snatches
of old songs which expressed nothing in particular:

"The maiden she says to him, says she,
Another man's wife I've got to be;
So go thy ways across the sea,
For all is over with you and me.'"

Which words had certainly no particular application to present
circumstances.

When he came out again, Miss Talbot was seated on the tree in a
meditative mood.

"I was just picking up the hair," said Brooke, in an indifferent
tone. "If we were tracked here and pursued it might tell tales, and
it would tell too much."

"Oh, how thoughtless of me!" said she. "But really I did intend to go
back and throw it down into the torrent. You see, I was so anxious to
know if my disguise was right, that I hurried out at once to show
you."

"Oh, it's all the same. I've disposed of it better than you would
have done."

"I shall try not to be so thoughtless again."

Brooke said nothing, but seated himself near her on the log.

"I'm sorry you don't smoke," said he, after a pause; "but I hope you
don't object to my taking a small whiff now and then."

"Oh no," said Miss Talbot. "I like to see you smoking."

"Do you know," said Brooke, after he had again filled and lighted his
inevitable pipe--"do you know, I think your character is almost
perfect."

"Why, because I don't object to smoking?" asked Miss Talbot, with a
smile.

"Well, I take that as one of the many straws which show how the wind
blows. But do you really mean to tell me that you don't regret what
you have done?"

"What, with my hair? What a quest