The two life-long friends, with arms around each other’s waists, now sauntered down to a lonely spot around the old mill to tell of their fears and their hearts’ desires. Mollie believed that Segwuna had wisdom, so that the Indian maiden was the oracle that Mollie consulted when she had burdens on her mind.
These two childlike natures had that implicit confidence in each other that is born of God. They sat on the mill-race, under the shade of a huge elm. As Mollie buried her head in Segwuna’s bosom, the fountains of pent-up grief broke out and Mollie wept and wept until Segwuna pacified her by stroking her brow and sweetly asking:
“What is the matter, my loved one? Has Segwuna offended you, sweetheart? What makes my love so unhappy?”
“Oh, Segwuna, I thought that you had been lost or killed or that something terrible had happened to you. You never stayed away so long before. I have been looking for you every day, and you did not return.
“Now that you have returned and you have not changed,—you still love me?—I cry for joy. But then, Segwuna, I have a secret to tell you, and you must not laugh at me, for then I shall think that you do not love me.
“Do you know,” continued Mollie, “that the day that Mr. Barclugh was here, and we were talking at breakfast about the King’s courtiers, I happened to repeat those lines of Shakespeare:
‘Had I but served my God with half the zeal
‘I serv’d my king, he would not in mine age
‘Have left me naked to mine enemies.’
“When I had finished these lines, the eyes of Mr. Barclugh gazed at me, and such a light shone out of them, I have not been able to rid myself of the look that he gave me.
“Segwuna, what does it mean? I am troubled by day in my thought and by night in my dreams.
“I could not find you, my darling, to let you know what troubled me. I have been unhappy every minute since then.”