He knew her in an instant; he had seen her often in church. Perplexed and astonished, he took off his cap in silence, finding absolutely nothing to say, although the dead partridge at her belt furnished a text on which he had often displayed biting eloquence.
After a moment he smiled, partly at the situation, partly to put her at her ease.
“If I had known it was you,” he said, “I should not have followed those very inviting twigs I saw dangling from the oziers and moose-vines.”
“Lined deadfalls are thoroughfares to woodsmen,” she answered, defiantly. “You are as free as I am in these woods—but not more free.”
The defiance, instead of irritating him, touched him. In it he felt a strange pathos—the proud protest of a heart that beat as free as the thudding wings of the wild birds he sometimes silenced with a shot.
“It is quite true,” he said, gently; “you are perfectly free in these woods.”
“But not by your leave!” she said, and the quick color stung her cheeks.
“It is not necessary to ask it,” he replied.
“I mean,” she said, desperately, “that neither I nor my father recognize your right to these woods.”
“Your father?” he repeated, puzzled.