“No, or it would soon come to ruin with such a landlord. It’s something with four walls and a roof, and I must be content with that. You don’t mean to say that you won’t let me come in?”
“I do not keep open house for travelers.”
“Oh, come,” exclaimed the young man, with a short laugh. “It’s your own fault that I am back here; you told me the wrong turning. I’ll swear I followed your directions. I must have been walking in a circle; anyhow I lost my way, and here I am, and, with all your churlishness, you can’t refuse me shelter on such a night as this.”
“The storm has cleared. It is but an hour’s walk to Arkdale; I will go with you.”
“That you certainly will not, to-night, nor any other man,” was the good-humored retort. “I’ve had enough of your confounded forest for to-night. Why, man, are you afraid to let me in? It’s a nasty thing to have to do, but——” and with a sudden thrust of his strong shoulder he forced the door open and passed the threshold.
But the woodman recovered from the surprise in a moment and, seizing him by the throat, was forcing him out again, when, with a low cry, Una sprang forward and laid her hand on his arm.
At her touch Gideon’s hands dropped to his side. The stranger sprang upright, but almost staggered out with discomfited astonishment.
For the first time in her life she stood face to face with a man other than a woodman or a charcoal-burner. And as she looked her heart almost stopped beating, the color died slowly from her face. Was it real, or was it one of the visionary heroes of her books created into life from her own dreaming brain?
With parted lips she waited, half longing, half dreading, to hear him speak.
It seemed ages before he found his voice, but at last, with a sudden little shake of the head, as if he were, as he would have expressed it, “pulling himself together,” he took off his wide hat and slowly turned his eyes from the beautiful face of the girl to the stern and now set face of the woodman.