“Twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two. And you have lived in the world all the time?”
“Yes—very much so,” he replied.
“And you are going back to it. You will never come into the forest again, while I shall go on living here till I die, and never see the world in which you have lived. Does that sound strange to you?”
“Do you mean to say that you have never been outside this forest?” he said, raising himself on his elbow to stare at her.
“Yes. I have never been out of Warden since we came into it.”
“But—why not?” he demanded.
“I do not know,” she replied, simply.
“But there must be some reason for it? Haven’t you been to Arkdale or Wermesley?”
“No,” she said, smiling. “Tell me what they are like. Are they gay and full of people, with theaters and parks, and ladies riding and driving, and crowds in the streets?”