"I do live here," he went on stammeringly, "but in a native hovel like the rest of them. I can't take you there."
"Why not?" Her eyes were mocking, her lips pursed into a demure, ironic challenge. "Don't you want to?"
"It's not that——" His opposition collapsed and he faltered like a boy. "Only—well, I daresay you know what they call me—Tristram the Hermit. It's because I've had to live alone so much. No one comes out here. I've got accustomed to it. I'm like a miser with my loneliness."
"Then I had better go," she said gravely.
"No—not now. I want you to come. You'll understand better——"
He bridled her horse and brought it to her. For a moment they looked at each other with a steadiness in which there was a vague antagonism. Then the man stooped, hiding his face, and placed his hands for her to mount. She scarcely seemed to touch them. He looked up into her small face, flushed now with an eager colour. "You are lighter than the leaf on the wind," he said.
She laughed, but her laugh was more meditative than gay.
"And you, Major Tristram, are a poet in the wilderness," she answered.
CHAPTER VI
BROKEN SANCTUARY