As he came nearer she retreated a little.
"I give you everything—everything but myself," said she.
"And why not yourself?"
Her voice had a plaintive note in it when she said to him, "There are those who need me more."
"I offer myself to you and to them also."
She stood with averted eyes. In a moment she said, "Tell me what are we to do when those we love die?"
"I, too, and all the children of men have that same worry," said he. "There's an old Eastern maxim, 'Love as many as you can, so that death may not make you friendless.'"
She walked away slowly. She stopped where the children sat playing and embraced them.
"Will you not say that you love me?" the young man urged.
The girl went up the gloomy trail with lagging feet as if it were steep and difficult. That clear-voiced love-call of the children halted her, and she looked back. Again the bird flung his song upon the silence. The sweet voice of the maiden rang like a bell in the still forest, as if answering the bird's message. "I love you—I love you," it said. Then she turned quickly and ran away.