"Well, you are—but not in the way you mean. You have made me discontented with myself, that's all, and I'm going to get out of the tall timber and see if I can't do something in the big world. I want to win your respect."
"I respect you now. Your work as a forester seems to me very fine and honorable."
"The work is all right, but I'm leaving it, just the same. I can't see a future in it. Fact is, I begin to long for a home; that lunch in your cabin started me on a new line of thought."
The memory of his visit to her garden in the valley seemed now like a chapter in the story of a far-off community, and she could hardly relate herself to the hermit girl who served the tea, but the forester—whom she recognized as a lover—was becoming every moment nearer, more insistent. A time of reckoning was at hand, and because she could not meet it she was eager to escape—to avoid the giving of pain. His face and voice had become dear—and might grow dearer. Therefore she made no comment on his statement of a desire for a home, and he asked:
"Don't you feel like going back to your garden once more?"
"No," she answered, sharply, "I never want to see the place again. It is repulsive to me."
Again a little silence intervened. "I hate to think of your posies perishing for lack of care," he said, with gentle sadness. "If I can, I'll ride over once in a while and see that they get some water."
His words exerted a magical power. She began to weaken in resolution. It was not an easy thing to sever the connection which had been so strangely established between herself and this good friend, who seemed each moment to be less the simple mountaineer she had once believed him to be. Western he was, forthright and rough hewn, but he had shown himself a man in every emergency—a candid, strong man. Her throat filled with emotion, but she walked beside him in silence.
He had another care on his mind. "You'd better let me round up your household goods," he suggested.
"Oh no. Let them go; they're not worth the effort."