“I say it, Mr. Loskiel.  And yet—­ I told you where to find me.  That is much for me to tell to any man.  Let that count a little to my damaged credit with you....  And—­ I still wear the ring you gave....  And left a rose for you, Let these things count a little in my favour.  For you can scarcely guess how much of courage it had cost me.”  She knelt there, her bared arms hanging by her side, the sun bright on her curls, staring at me out of those strange, grey eyes.

“Since I have been alone,” she said in a low voice, “no man—­ unless by a miracle it be you—­ has offered me a service or a kindness except that he awaited his reward.  Soon or late their various songs became the same familiar air.  It is the only song I’ve heard from men—­ with endless variations, truly, often and cunningly disguised—­ yet ever the same and sorry theme....  Men are what God made them; God has seemed to fashion me to their liking—­ I scarce know how—­ seeing I walk in rags, unkempt, and stained with wind and rain, and leaf and earth and sun

She made a childish gesture, sweeping the curls aside with both her hands: 

“I sheared my hair!  Look at me, sir—­ a wild thing in a ragged shift and tattered gown—­ all burnt and roughened with the sun and wind—­ not even clean to look on—­ yet that I am!—­ and with no friend to speak to save an Indian....  I ask you, sir, what it is in me—­ and what lack of pride must lie in men that I can not trust myself to the company of one among them—­ not one!  Be he officer, or common soldier—­ all are the same.”

She dropped her head, and, thoughtfully, her hands again crept up and wandered over her cheeks and hair, the while her grey eyes, fixed and remote, seemed lost in speculation.  Then she looked up again: 

“Why should I think to find you different?” she asked, “Is any man different from his fellows, humble or great?  Is it not man himself, not only men, that I must face as I have faced you—­ with silence, or with sullen speech, or with a hardness far beyond my years, and a gaiety that means nothing more kind than insolence?”

Again her head fell on her breast, and her hands linked themselves on her knees as she knelt there in silence.

“Lois,” I said, trying to think clearly, “I do not know that other men and I are different.  Once I believed so.  But—­ lately—­ I do not know.  Yet, I know this:  selfish or otherwise, I can not endure the thought of you in peril.”

She looked at me very gravely; then dropped her head once more.

“I don’t know,” I said desperately, “I wish to be honest—­ tell you no lie—­ tell none to myself.  I—­ your beauty—­ has touched me—­ or whatever it is about you that attracts.  And, whatever gown you go in, I scarcely see it—­ somehow—­ finding you so—­ so strangely—­ lovely—­ in speech also—­ and in—­ every way....  And now that I have not lied to you—­ or to myself—­ in spite of what I have said, let me be useful to you.  For I can be; and perhaps these other sentiments will pass away——­”