Simple enough! Could anything be more extraordinary, more enigmatical? I did not know what to say, what course to pursue; but in the midst of my surprise I had sense enough to see that, until I knew more, the less I said the better. Sylvia did not know that I had visited her mother's island and her mother's house. It is possible that she did not know that Mother Anastasia had been here. I must decide whether or not I would enlighten her on these points. My disposition was to be perfectly open and frank with her, and to be thus I must enlighten her. But I waited, and in answer to her statement merely told her how glad I was that she had a vacation and such a delightful place to come to. She did not immediately reply, but stood looking past me over the little vale beyond us.
"Well, here I am," she said presently, "and in a very different dress from that in which you used to see me; but for all that, I am still a sister of the House of Martha, and so"—
"So what?" I interrupted.
"I suppose I should go back to the house," she answered.
Now I began to warm up furiously.
"Don't think of it!" I exclaimed. "Now that I have met you, give me a few moments of your time. Let me see you as you are, free and undisguised, like other women, and not behind bars or in charge of old Sister Sarah."
"Wasn't she horrid?" said Sylvia.
"Indeed she was," I replied; "and now cannot you walk a little with me, or shall we sit down somewhere and have a talk?"
She shook her head. "Even if mother and the rest had not gone away in the boat, I could not do that, you know."
If she persisted in her determination to leave me, she should know my love in two minutes. But I tried further persuasion.