The brightness faded from the stranger’s beautiful face, leaving it more melancholy than before.
Patsy looked briefly baffled, then tried again with:
“Come down to the beach with me now and meet them and my aunt.” Sudden remembrance of Miss Martha caused her to exclaim: “Good gracious! I wonder what time it is! None of my friends knows where I went. They’ll be terribly worried.”
Patsy sprang to her feet in dismay. She wondered if she had really been away from the beach so very long. She was of the rueful conviction that she had.
“I would go, but I am afraid. If she saw me she would be angry and shut me up for many days. So she has said.”
This was even more amazing to Patsy. She longed to ask this strange girl all sorts of questions. Courtesy forbade her to do so. She also had a vague idea that it would be of no use. Fear of the person she had referred to as “she” had evidently tied the wood nymph’s tongue.
“I’d love to have you come with me,” Patsy said warmly. “But I wouldn’t want you to do anything that might bring trouble upon yourself. Is it right that you should obey this—this person?”
“No; never it is right!” The answer came in bitter, resentful tones. “Often I think to run away from here, never to return. Only I have the no place to go. I am truly the poor one. Dolores!” She made a little despairing gesture. “Si, it is the true name for me.”
“Then if you feel that it is not right to obey a person who is treating you unjustly, don’t do it,” was Patsy’s bold counsel. “I wish you would tell me your trouble. Perhaps I could help you. Won’t you trust me and tell me about it?”
“I am afraid,” was the mournful repetition. “Not afraid of you. Oh, never that! Already I have for you the amor. You are simpatica. I would to go to the sands with you now and meet your friends. I cannot. I will show you the way to the road. So you can walk more quickly to the sands. I will try to come to this place to-morrow at this time and wait for you.”