“It was most thoughtful of you, but it wouldn’t be of the least use to me, you know. Where I am going, I couldn’t find a soul to change a ten-dollar gold piece. Haven’t you any paper money?”
“I’m sorry,” Dorothea replied, genuinely grieved at her lack of foresight. “It was stupid of me, wasn’t it, not to have realized that difficulty? I thought gold would be just the thing you would want.”
“Under ordinary conditions you would have been quite right,” Hendon hastened to assure her. “You have not the slightest reason to accuse yourself of thoughtlessness, and I must seem like a most ungrateful brute; but you see my life really depends upon it.”
“I can get you paper for it right away,” Dorothea suggested.
“That will be good of you,” he answered. “How soon do you think you can have it for me?”
“I can go into the village to-morrow morning,” Dorothea replied, and then hesitated. “But I can’t tell when I will be able to get off alone again.”
“And I dare not loiter about in these woods,” he told her. “It’s running too great a risk.”
“Then where can I meet you?” Dorothea asked. “Where are you living?” she added.
“With some turpentine gatherers,” he replied. “They have a hut deep in the woods, and—”
“Couldn’t I go there with the money?” Dorothea broke in.