“Not the same, Walda. I love much more than any man in Zanah.”
Walda’s face became as white as the cap upon her soft hair. She clasped her hands tightly together and said, with a catch in her voice:
“Stephen, why hast thou never told me of thy love?”
“Because I thought you would not care to hear about it. Because it is forbidden to speak of love in Zanah,” Everett answered.
He seated himself beside her on the settle. From behind the high desk Diedrich Werther now and then stared at them with a glimmer of suspicion in his eyes. His recent contact with the world at the railway station evidently had made him less trustful than his fellow-colonists. Everett noticed the innkeeper’s watchfulness, and therefore was careful not to betray emotion.
“Walda, you are not angry because I have deceived you, are you?” he said, when she did not answer him.
“Angry with thee, Stephen? Nay, thy love cannot concern the prophetess of Zanah.” Her lip quivered, but she held her head high, and disdained to let him know that the heart beneath her kerchief was throbbing so that her words were almost smothered in her throat. “Thy confession did cause me to be abashed for a moment. I had never thought that out in the world some woman loved thee.”
She rose to her feet as she spoke, and she would have gone away without another word but he boldly caught her hand and pulled her back upon the settle. Diedrich Werther looked on with jaw dropped and pipe suspended at elbow-length, but Everett defied him.
“You misunderstand me, Walda. I want to explain to you, but this is not the place.”
“I—I would not hear what thou hast to say about thy love, Stephen,” she said, with a faint smile. “Frieda hath told me her story, and it is enough for me to think of in the watches of the night. Detain me not. I must pray for Frieda Bergen. I must seek divine light for the understanding of mortal weaknesses, of which love is said to be the most dangerous. Verily, to-day I fear the inspiration hath been withdrawn from me, for I am dull of comprehension.”