"No," she said. "Truly there is not, now. But there was. It was only the recollection of my coming here that made me act so queerly."
"Look here," said Lowell bluntly, "is that stepfather of yours treating you all right? To put it frankly, he hasn't a very good reputation around here. I've often regretted not telling you more when I brought you over here. But you know how people feel about minding their own affairs. It's a foolish sort of reserve that keeps us quiet when we feel that we should speak."
"No, I'm treated all right," said the girl. "It was just homesickness for my school, I guess, that worked on me when I first came here. But I can't get over the recollection of that night you brought me to this place. Everything seemed so chilling and desolate—and dead! And then those few days that followed!"
She buried her face in her hands a moment, and then said, quietly:
"Did you know that my stepfather had married an Indian woman?"
"Yes. Do you mean that you didn't know?"
"No, I didn't know."
"What a fool I was for not telling you these things!" exclaimed Lowell. "I might have saved you a lot of humiliation."
"You could have saved me more than humiliation. He told me all about her—the Indian woman. He laughed when he told me. He said he was going to kill me as he had killed her—by inches."
Lowell grew cold with horror.