to receive his grave, melancholy bow, or patiently trotted at his side
carrying things he did not want, which she had taken from the lodge.
When he sat down to work, she remained seated at a distance, looking at
him with glistening beady eyes like blackberries set in milk, and softly
scratching the little bare brown ankle of one foot with the turned-in
toes of the other, after an infantine fashion. Yet after he had left--a
still single man, solely though his interpreter's diplomacy, as he
always believed--he was very worried as to the wisdom of his course.
Why should he not in this way ally himself to his unfortunate race
irrevocably? Perhaps there was an answer somewhere in his consciousness
which he dared not voice to himself. Since his visit to the English
Atherlys, he had put resolutely aside everything that related to that
episode, which he now considered was an unhappy imposture. But there
were times when a vision of Lady Elfrida, gazing at him with wondering,
fascinated eyes, passed across his fancy; even the contact with his own
race and his thoughts of their wrongs recalled to him the tomb of the
soldier Atherly and the carven captive savage supporter. He could not
pass the upright supported bier of an Indian brave--slowly desiccating
in the desert air--without seeing in the dead warrior's paraphernalia of
arms and trophies some resemblance to the cross-legged crusader on whose
marble effigy SHE had girlishly perched herself as she told the story of
her ancestors. Yet only the peaceful gloom and repose of the old church
touched him now; even she, too, with all her glory of English girlhood,
seemed to belong to that remote past. She was part of the restful quiet
of the church; the yews in the quaint old churchyard might have waved
over her as well.

Still, he was eager to see his sister, and if he should conclude to
impart to her his secret, she might advise him. At all events, he
decided to delay his departure until her arrival, a decision with which