her recover herself; he had seen her emerge from the depths of
despair into something more like self-control; he had carried her
in his arms, she had laughed at him, she had twice impulsively
grasped him by the arm, she had smiled at him three times, she
had sighed twice, she had frowned once; she had swept upon him
bringing with her an impression of the mysterious. Many men are
married to women for years without seeing their wives display so
many and such varied phases; to Cleggett it seemed not so much
that he was making a new acquaintance as renewing one that had
been broken off suddenly at some distant date. Cleggett, like
the true-hearted gentleman and born romanticist that he was,
resolved to serve her without question until such time as she
chose to make known to him her motives for her actions.

"Do you know," she said, softly and gravely to Cleggett as George
and Elmer deposited the oblong box upon a spot which she
indicated near the cabin, "I have met very few men in my life who
are capable of what you are doing?"

"I?" said Cleggett, surprised. "I have done nothing."

"You have found a woman in a strange position--an unusual
position, indeed!--and you have helped her without persecuting
her with questions."

"It is nothing," murmured Cleggett.

"Would you think me too impulsive," she said, with a rare smile,
"if I told you that you are the sort of man whom women are ready
to trust implicitly almost at first sight?"