For a moment the strange woman looked up from her occupation and glanced at Christie; and then, without further notice, resumed her play with the kitten, just as if she had not seen her at all. But in that one brief, fleeting glance, Christie read her sad story. The woman before her was insane.
In mingled sorrow, surprise, and curiosity, Christie stood gazing upon her. She could do so with perfect impunity, for the woman never raised her eyes to look at her after that one careless, passing glance, every faculty being apparently absorbed by her straw and her kitten. In years, she might have been five-and-thirty, with a face which, it spite of its total want of expression, was still singularly beautiful. Her tall, slender form was exquisitely rounded, and her long, rich, waving hair floated like black raveled silk over her fair, sloping shoulders. Every feature was beautifully chiseled; her complexion dazzlingly fair, almost transparent; and her large, black, brilliant eyes magnificent, despite their vacant, idiotic stare. Her hands and feet were of most aristocratic smallness and whiteness; for she wore neither shoes nor stockings. Her dress was of coarse brown serge, but it could not mar the beautiful form it covered.
Moments passed unheeded, while Christie stood gazing sadly on the lovely wreck of womanhood before her, and wondering what could have driven her insane, and why she and this man dwelt alone here, so far removed from human habitation. She wondered what relation they bore to each other. He could not be her father—he was not old enough for that; neither could he be her brother—they were too totally dissimilar in looks. Perhaps he was her husband; but even that did not seem probable.
While she thus idly speculated, the woman suddenly arose, and clasping her kitten in her arms, turned and walked rapidly away in the direction of the woods, without once glancing at Christie, and was soon lost to sight amid the trees.
"Who can she be?" thought Christie; "it is certainly the same one I saw that night on the island, though she was raving mad, and this one seems perfectly harmless. I thought her a ghost that night, and fainted; and he had to tell Aunt Tom some story of his own invention to account for it."
The thought brought back the past so vividly to her mind, that the maniac was forgotten, and, sitting down on a fallen tree, she buried her face in her hands and gave way to a passionate burst of grief.
It was soon over. Christie's paroxysms of sorrow never lasted long, but exhausted themselves by their very violence, and she arose to survey the place which seemed destined to be her future home.
It was a beautiful sylvan spot. The cabin was built in a sort of natural semi-circle, surrounded on all sides by the dense primeval forest. A smooth grass-plot sloped gently, for some three yards in front of the house, and then was broken on one side by clumps of bushes, and on the other by a little clear, crystal stream, that danced over the white pebbles, flashing like pearls in the sunlight. Behind the house, was a sort of vegetable garden, with a narrow space reserved for flowers, betokening the refined taste of the gardener. The house itself was a low, rough, unpretending looking cabin of the smallest and plainest dimensions. Not a sound broke the deep stillness, save the musical ripple of the little stream, the songs of the birds, the soft swaying of the trees, and involuntarily, the deep peace of the scene passed into Christie's heart, soothing it into calmness once more.
As she sat gazing around, a heavy footstep came crashing through the trees, and the next moment her host stood before her, with a gun in one hand, and a game-bag, well filled, slung over his shoulder.
He advanced to where she sat, looking surprised and pleased to see her there.