"What'll you have, Miss Fred?" asked Leonard.
"Whatever you like."
"Wal, then, ef you'd jes ez lief, I'll say [Pg 164] 'Marmion.' I was learned it at school." Throwing off his cap and striking a dramatic pose, he began:—
"The Douglas round him drew his cloak."
It is marvellous, the power of strong feeling to communicate itself through all barriers. True emotion is the X-ray which can penetrate all matter,—yes, and all spirit too.
The hackneyed words burned again with the freshness of their primal enthusiasm. Again Douglas spurned, and Marmion flung him back scorn for scorn. It was not acting. Leonard Davitt could never have thrown fire into a rôle which did not appeal to him; but this lived. He put his soul into it, and he drew out the soul from his audience.
"I must go now," he said, when he had finished, having ducked his head shyly in response to the applause, and picked up his cap. "I'm goin' off at sunrise."
"Where are you going, Leon?" queried Winifred Anstice, coming up to him where he stood not far off from the spot where Flint, in dead shadow, leaned against the trunk of a giant pine.
"Goin' off bars-fishin' for a week with the men from the Pint," Leonard answered, and then added in a lower tone, "you won't forget your promise, Miss Fred."