“Not wishing the other girls to know I was sufficiently interested to have borrowed the poems, I hid your manuscripts in an old box with some papers of no value. Then, this is the incredible thing, I forgot they were there. It was only a moment of forgetfulness; I remembered when it was too late. Later in the same afternoon I decided suddenly to clear out my bureau drawer and so piled all the trash I could find into this self-same box and carried it into our study and flung the box and everything it contained into the fire. The instant the papers caught fire I knew what I had done. I did thrust my hands into the flames only to draw forth a few charred scraps without a single line upon them.”
Gill drew up her sleeve; the scar from a burn showed above her wrist.
“See I burned my arm in the attempt,” she murmured indifferently, “not that I cared except that I have had trouble in hiding the burn from the other girls. The worst thing I have done was not so much the accident and my foolish loss of memory, but the fact that when Mrs. Graham and Bettina asked if I had seen the manuscripts of your poems, I told them no, or at least I deliberately gave them this impression. Yet all the days of my life I have esteemed truthfulness and a sense of honor the greatest of all human possessions. This is why I have never been able to make the confession. I could not pass through Christmas day without telling you and to-morrow I shall speak to Mrs. Burton, Mrs. Graham, and Bettina and let them know of what I have been guilty. Afterwards I shall go home, I cannot remain here at Tahawus cabin.”
“Nor can I say that I forgive you, Miss Gilchrist. If I should say so I would not be telling the truth. I’ll do my best to forget after a time. After all, I had given up any idea of my verses being restored, so I am not much worse off.”
Gill arose.
“I much prefer your not pretending to forgive me, because you could not mean it truthfully. After I leave Half Moon Lake I hope we may never see each other again. I cannot exactly explain, but I felt when I met you that you would have an unfortunate influence upon me. Now I can never see you without recalling that because of you, or through you, I have done what I never could have believed of myself.”
“I am sorry,” Allan Drain responded stiffly.
“So am I, but that makes no real difference now. I hear the others returning. Good-by.”
CHAPTER XVI
An Encounter
While Gill and Allan Drain were having their interview in the living-room, Bettina Graham slipped out of Tahawus cabin alone and carrying her skates walked down to the edge of Half Moon Lake.