Little Ann leaned against his shoulder.  “Don’t be grumpy,” she whispered, “I like you best of all—­when you’re not the doctor.”

“Umph!” grunted McPherson, but he stayed “put” after that, until the curtain went down on the first act.  Then he turned to Truedale.  He had been laughing until the tears stood in his eyes.

“Did that big woodsman make you think of any one?” he asked.

“Did he remind you of any one?” Truedale returned.  He was weak with excitement.  Lynda, sitting beside him, was almost as white as the gown she wore—­for she had remembered the old play!

“He’s enough like old Jim White to be his twin!  I haven’t laughed so much in a month.  I feel as if I’d had a vacation in the hills.”

Then the curtain went up on the big scene!  Camden had spared no expense.  That was his way.  The audience broke into appreciative applause as it gazed at the realistic reproduction of deep woods, dim trails, and a sky of gold.  It was an empty stage—­a waiting moment!

In the first act the characters had been more or less subservient to the big honest sheriff, with his knowledge of the people and his amazing interpretation of justice.  He had been so wise—­so deliciously anarchistic—­that the real motive of the play had only begun to appear.  But now into the beautiful, lonely woods the woman came!  The shabby, radiant little creature with her tremendous problem yet to solve.  Through the act she rose higher, clearer; she won sympathy, she revealed herself; and, at the end, she faced her audience with an appeal that was successful to the last degree.

In short, she had got Truedale’s play over the footlights!  He knew it; every one knew it.  And when the climax came and the decision was made—­leaving the man-who-had-learned-his-lesson unaware of the divine renunciation but strong enough to take up his life clear-sightedly; when the little heroine lifted her eyes and her empty arms to the trail leading up and into the mysterious woods—­and to all that she knew they held—­something happened to Truedale!  He felt the clutch of a small cold hand on his.  He looked around, and into the wide eyes of Ann!  The child seemed hypnotized and, as if touched by a magic power, her resemblance to her mother fairly radiated from her face.  She was struggling for expression.  Seeking to find words that would convey what she was experiencing.  It was like remembering indistinctly another country and scene, whose language had been forgotten.  Then—­and only Lynda and Truedale heard—­little Ann said: 

“It’s Nella-Rose!  Father, it’s Nella-Rose!”

Betty had been right.  The shock had, for a moment, drawn the veil aside, the child was looking back—­back; she heard what others had called the one she now remembered—­the sacreder name had escaped her!

“Father, it’s Nella-Rose!”

Truedale continued to look at Ann.  Like a dying man—­or one suddenly born into full life—­he gradually understood!  As Ann looked at that moment, so had Nella-Rose looked when, in Truedale’s cabin, she turned her eyes to the window and saw his face!