"He called me. He called me."
Under the trees where the moonlight threw tracing of shadows she came upon him standing, waiting for her. She held out her hand to him like a babe. He was taller than she thought.
He took her hands silently and she grew calm at once. All shame left her. She forgot her city life; she remembered only the sweet, merry life of the village where she was born. The sound of sleigh bells and song, and the lisp of wind in the grass, and songs of birds in the maples came to her.
His voice began softly:
"You are too good and sweet to be so devoured of beasts. In your little Northern home they are waiting for you. To-morrow you will go back to them."
He placed his hand, which was soft and warm and broad, over her eyes. His voice was like velvet, soft yet elastic.
"When you wake you will hate what you have been. No power can keep you here. You will go back to the simple life from which you should never have departed. You will love simple things and the pleasures of your native place."
Her face was turned upward, but her eyelids had fallen.
"When you wake you will not remember your life here. You will be a girl again, unstained and ready to begin life without remorse and without accusing memory. When I leave you at your door to-night, you will belong to the kingdom of good and not to the kingdom of evil."