“It must have been, but I was so deep in our cave that I heard but little of it. Uncle and Angelique thought I was out in it and lost. They suffered about it, and uncle tried to make a fire and was sick. We had just got home when we heard you.”
“After the storm I crawled out and I saw you in the boat. You seemed to have come right out of the earth and I shouted, or tried to. I kept on shouting, even after you were out of sight and then I got discouraged and tried once more to find a road out.”
“I was singing so loud I suppose I didn’t hear, at first. I’m so sorry. But it’s all right now. You’re safe, and some way will be found to get you to your home, or that lumber camp, if you’d rather.”
“Suppose I do not wish to go to either place? What then?”
Margot stared. “Not—wish—to go—to your own dear—home?”
The stranger smiled at the amazement of her face.
“Maybe not. Especially as I don’t know how I would be received there. What if I was foolish and didn’t know when I was well off? What if I ran away, meaning to stay away forever?”
“Well, if it hadn’t been for the rocks, and me, it would have been forever. But God made the rocks and gave them to you for a shelter; and He made me, and sent me out on the lake so you should see me and be found. If He wants you to go back to that home He’ll find a way. Now, it’s queer. Here we’ve been talking ever so long yet I don’t know who you are. You know all of us: Uncle Hugh Dutton, Angelique Ricord, and me. I’m Margot Romeyn. What is your name?”
“Mine? Oh! I’m Adrian Wadislaw. A good-for-nought, some people say. Young Wadislaw, the sinner, son of old Wadislaw, the saint.”
The answer was given recklessly, while the dark young face grew sadly bitter and defiant.