"Why did you take to such dreadful work?" she persisted. "Was there nothing else more congenial, less brutalizing that you could do?"
He shook his head.
"No—nothing. There was nothing else." Bitterly he added: "The poor must slave so that the rich may enjoy."
Puzzled, she asked:
"It's no use going into particulars," he replied, almost contemptuously. "You wouldn't understand."
Turning on his heel, he resumed his work on the cabin.
Grace did understand. She understood that there was something in the past life of this man which he did not wish to divulge. She felt that he had suffered, and she was sorry for him. Again she tried to draw him out, but skilfully he parried her questions, and appeared to resent them. Noticing this, she desisted. His past, as far as she was concerned, at any rate, was and must remain a sealed book.
But Grace did not remain silent for all that. She was too much of a woman to permit of that. Seeing that she could get nothing from him, she talked about herself. She chattered about her home in New York, about her friends, about the things which interested her and the things which bored her. He listened as he worked, apparently interested, and when she said that she despised the empty and frivolous amusements of her set and was ambitious to do something more worthy in life, he nodded approvingly. When she had told him everything, once more she attempted to question him in turn, but he relapsed into an obstinate silence.
After a week's continuous toil the cabin was completed. As a finishing touch, he made some furniture for it—a crude table and two three-legged stools. When he had put the bed in place the hut was ready for occupancy. When at last everything was ready, he called out to Grace to come and inspect her new home.