alk slower and talk to her.

"I saw you go," he said. "I didn't know where until Alonzo came running
to tell me."

"I heard him bragging about killing, and about his women--I was weak,
wasn't I?"

"Weak?"

"I was afraid to face the future, just because it isn't to be exactly
like I thought I wanted."

"What was the kind you wanted, Lyla?"

"Oh ... I guess I wanted a husband who could see me only, and children,
and evenings together in the flower garden, and ... well, all the silly,
sentimental little things that mean so much to a woman."

He thought, _Even with its heart half cut out, it still wanted to live
... Coat for Janalee ... the strip-tease queen...._

They passed through the last of the tiger trees and she said, "We're
safe, now. The tigers never attack anyone outside their forest."

She was walking slowly and he said, "We should get on back before you're
missed, shouldn't we?"

"Who would miss me?" she asked. "So long as I remain physically intact
for the marriage night, who cares where or why I went away?"

There was the cold bleakness of winter in her eyes as she spoke, and in
her voice the first undertone of brass. He saw that this was already the
beginning of the change that Narf would make in her; the transformation
of a girl young and wanting to love and be loved into a hard and cynical
woman.

He put his arm around her shoulder, thinking that he should tell her
that _he_ cared and that she must never let Narf change her.

"Lyla, I--"

He realized how futile and foolish the words would sound. She would
marry Narf, he would return to Earth, and they would never meet again.
There were no words for him to speak on this last walk together, no way
to tell her that he wanted to help her, to protect and care for her. No
way to express the feeling inside him....

He did what seemed as natural under the circumstances as it had been for
him to put his arm around her in the clearing. He tilted up her face and
bent his head to kiss her.

And walked with jarring impact into the knobby elbow of a ghost tree
limb.

* * * * *
* * * *

The sun was down and dusk was darkening the camp when they arrived back
at her cabin.

"Thank you, Dale," she said. Her hand squeezed his arm. "I didn't know I
had a friend ... but now we'll have to be strangers because--"

[Illustration]

Gravel crunched loudly on one of the paths in the ghost trees a