Was it true? . . . Those clear, sharp-cut features, those bright, keen eyes with the gay smile! . . . Was it true—-or was she dreaming?
Instinctively she dropped her hand and let her hair like a black curtain shield her face. The blood seemed to stand still in her veins waiting that dreadful instant of recognition.
Confusedly, with some frantic thought of flight, "I must go—Oh, I must go——"
She sat up, still hiding, like Godiva, in her hair.
"You lie down and rest," said the authoritative voice. "If there's any going to be done I'll do it. Is there some other Babe in the Woods to be found?"
"Oh, no—no, but I must go——"
"You get a good rest. You can tell me all about it and who you are when you're dry and warm."
She yielded to the compulsion in his voice and to her own weakness, and lay very still and inert, her cheek upon her outflung arm, her eyes watching the red dance of flames through the black strands of her hair. It was the final irony, she felt, of that dreadful night. To meet Barry Elder again—like this—after all her dreams——
It was too terrible to be true.
And he did not know her. He had come to that place of his, in the Adirondacks, of which he had spoken, and had never given her a thought. He had never come to see her. . . .