"Oh, surely I shall not awake and find it all a dream!" she cried in terror. "Awake and find myself still in that awful palace, with its dreadful surroundings and the odour of death everywhere! Oh--h!"
The girl shuddered.
"Dear Peggy," said Dick tenderly, "this is no dream; you are with us again, and we with you. All the past is as nothing. Let us live for the future. Is that right, Roland?"
"Yes, you must forget the past, Peggy," said Roland. "Dick is right. The past shall be buried. We are young yet. The world is all before us. So come, laugh, and be happy, Peggy."
"And this charming child here, who is she?" said Dick. He alluded to Weenah.
"That is little Weenah, a daughter of the wilds, a child of the desert. Nay, but no child after all, are you, Weenah?"
Weenah bent her dark eyes on the ground.
"I am nothing," she said. "I am nobody, only--Benee's."
"But, Weenah," said Peggy, taking the girl by the hand, "oh, how I shall miss you when you go!"
"Go?" said Weenah wonderingly.