“You wouldn’t have thought so.  She did it like a young goddess with the supreme prerogative to flash herself that way on mortals by the roadside.”

“Oh, she was a young goddess as well as an angel.”

“After she had looked me in the eye a second,” continued Lynde, not heeding the criticism, “she said—­what do you suppose she said?”

“How can I imagine?”

“You could not, in a thousand years.  Instead of saying, ’Good-morning, sir,’ and dropping me a courtesy, she made herself very tall and said, with quite a grand air, ‘I am the Queen of Sheba!’ Just fancy it.  Then she turned on her heel and ran up the road.”

“Oh, that was very rude.  Is this a true story, Mr. Lynde?”

“That is the sad part of it, Miss Ruth.  This poor child had lost her reason, as I learned subsequently.  She had wandered out of an asylum in the neighborhood.  After a while some men came and took her back again—­ on my horse, which they had captured in the road.”

“The poor, poor girl!  I am sorry for her to the heart.  Your story began like a real romance; is that all of it!  It is sad enough.”

“That is all.  Of course I never saw her afterwards.”

“But you remembered her, and pitied her?”

“For a long time, Miss Ruth.”

“I like you for that.  But what has this to do with me?  You said”—­

“The story touched on you indirectly?”

“Yes.”

“Well, so it does; I will tell you how.  This poor girl was beautiful enough in your own fashion to be your sister, and when I first saw you"- -

“Monsieur,” said the guide, respectfully lifting a forefinger to his hat as he approached, “I think it looks like rain.”

The man had spoken in English.  Ruth went crimson to the temples, and Lynde’s face assumed a comical expression of dismay.

“Looks like rain,” he repeated mechanically.  “I thought you told me you did not understand English.”

“Monsieur is mistaken.  It is Jean Macquart that does not spik English.”

“Very well,” said Lynde; “if it is going to rain we had better be moving.  It would not be pleasant to get blockaded up here by a storm—­or rather it would!  Are the animals ready?”

“They are waiting at the foot of the path, monsieur.”

Lynde lost no time getting Ruth into the saddle, and the party began their descent, the guide again in charge of the girl’s mule.  On the downward journey they unavoidably faced the precipices, and the road appeared to them much steeper than when they ascended.

“Is it wind or rain, do you think?” asked Lynde, looking at a wicked black cloud that with angrily curled white edges was lowering itself over the valley.

“I think it is both, monsieur.”

“How soon?”

“I cannot know.  Within an hour, surely.”

“Perhaps we were wrong to attempt going down,” said Lynde.