Thompson stared at her.  Perhaps he was not alone in facing something that numbed him.

“Your man go away.  Not come back.  You sorry?  You feel bad?” he asked.

Her lips parted in a wide smile.

“Sam he good man,” she said evenly.  “Leave good place for me.  I plenty warm, plenty to eat.  I no care he go.  Sam, pretty soon he get old.  I want ketchum man, I ketchum.  No feel bad.  No.”

She shook her head, as if the idea amused her.  And Mr. Thompson, perceiving that a potential desertion which moved him to sympathy did not trouble her at all, turned his attention to the letter in his hand.  He opened the envelope.  There were half a dozen closely written sheets within.

Dear freckle-faced man:  there is such a lot I want to say that I don’t know where to begin.  Perhaps you’ll think it queer I should write instead of telling you, but I have found it hard to talk to you, hard to say what I mean in any clear sort of way.  Speech is a tricky thing when half of one’s mind is dwelling on the person one is trying to talk to and only the other half alive to what one is trying to express.  The last time we were together it was hard for me to talk.  I knew what I was going to do, and I didn’t like to tell you.  I wanted to talk and when I tried I blundered.  Too much feeling—­a sort of inward choking.  And the last few days, when I have become accustomed to the idea of going away and familiar with the details of the astonishing change which has taken place in my life, you have been gone.  I dare not trust to a casual meeting between here and Pachugan.  I do not even know for sure that you have gone to Pachugan, or that you will come back—­of course I think you will or I should not write.

    But unless you come back to-night you will not see me at Lone
    Moose.  So I’m going to write and leave it with Cloudy Moon to
    give you when you do come.

Perhaps I’d better explain a little.  Dad had an old bachelor brother who—­it seems—­knew me when I was an infant.  Somehow he and dad have kept in some sort of touch.  This uncle, whom I do not remember at all, grew moderately wealthy.  When he died some six months ago his money was willed equally to dad and myself.  It was not wholly unexpected.  Dad has often reminded me of that ultimate loophole when I would grow discontented with being penned up in these dumb forests.  I suppose it may sound callous to be pleased with a dead man’s gift, but regardless of the ways and means provided it seems very wonderful to me that at last I am going out into the big world that I have spent so many hours dreaming of, going out to where there are pictures and music and beautiful things of all sorts—­and men.

You see, I am trying to be brutally frank.  I am trying to empty my mind out to you, and a bit of my heart.  I like you a lot, big man.  I don’t mind making that confession.  If you were not a preacher—­if you did