[CHAPTER XV]
Mona Guyon was not afraid. She was startled, and thrilled by an instant intuitive sensing of the unusual and the significant in the man's unexpected appearance. Yet the color did not leave her cheeks nor did a cry come to her lips. She thrust the baby beavers from her lap and rose unexcitedly to her feet, tall, slim and amazingly beautiful.
She was looking steadily at the man, and as she looked her heart beat a little faster, for the wilderness had taught her a quick and definite understanding of the story she saw written in the wild face among the willows. Its tragedy flashed upon her before her parted lips had found words—hunger, sickness, the emaciation and weakness of a man who found less discomfort upon his hands and knees than upon his feet.
As she looked at him a change came into his face that the man himself could feel as there swept over him a slow and inundating sense of shame. Every instinct of chivalry in him revolted at the ridiculous and alarming figure he must be making of himself. But even in this moment of surprise and distress he did not entirely lose his sense of humor. He tried to smile. The effort was nothing short of pathos.
"I beg your pardon," he said as he rose a little unsteadily to his feet and came out of the willows. His raggedness and the coarse stubble on his face could not conceal the consciousness of pride with which he straightened himself and bowed to her. "I have come upon you like a wolf, and I know I look like a wolf. But I assure you I am as harmless as a sheep, and if you don't mind dividing your carrots with me——" He nodded toward the little yellow pile of carrots she had brought for her beaver pets.
His voice was pleasant. It made her think of Father Albanel, and as he spoke a smile was in his eyes and on his pale lips. She went quickly to his side and put a hand on his arm. Its firm young touch seemed to steady him.
"What has happened?" she asked. "You look——"
"Sick—and a little mad," he finished for her, when she hesitated. "But I'm mostly hungry, and if I may have the carrots——"