"No, Lahoma. At least not for a long, long time. I don't believe
it's good for me to forget the life I've chosen, even for a happy
hour. When I left the city, it was to drop out of the world--nobody
knows what became of me, not even my brother. You've brought
everything back, and that isn't good for my peace of mind and so--
good-bye!"

Tall and straight he stood, like a soldier whose duty it is to face
defeat; and standing thus, he fastened his eyes upon her face as if
to stamp those features in a last long look upon his heart.

"Good-by," said Lahoma; this time she did not hold out her hand.
Her face was composed, her voice quiet. If in her eyes there was
the look of one who has been rebuffed; her pride was too great to
permit a show of pain.

Wilfred hesitated. But what was to be done? Solitude and
homesickness had perhaps distorted his vision; at any rate he had
succumbed to the folly against which he had been warned. He could
not accept Lahoma as a mere child; and though, during the scene, he
had repeatedly reminded himself that she was only fifteen, her face,
her voice, her form, her manner of thought, refused the limits of
childhood. Therefore he went away, outwardly well-content with his
morning, but inwardly full of wrath that his heart had refused the
guidance of his mind.

And she had been so simple, so eager to meet him on an equal plane,
even clinging to him as to the only hope in her narrow world that
might draw her out into deeper currents of knowledge.