"I am trying to save myself—I am trying." She turned and looked off through the forest, a straight, slender shape in the moving shadows of the leaves.
"But if he could really help you—if you truly believe it, dear, I—I don't know whether you might not venture—now——"
"No, dear." She slowly closed her eyes, remained motionless for a moment, drew a deep, long breath, and looked up through the sunlit branches overhead.
"I've got to be fair to him," she said aloud to herself; "I must give myself to him as I ought to be, or not at all.... That is settled."
She turned to Kathleen and took her hand:
"Come on, fellow-pilgrim," she said with an effort to smile. "My cowardice is over for the present."
A few steps forward they sighted Scott coming back. He was unusually red in the face and rather excited, and he flourished a stick.
"Of all the infernal impudence!" he said. "What do you think has happened to me? I saw a wild boar back there—not a very big one—and he came out into the trail ahead, and I kept straight on, thinking he'd hear me and run. And I'm blessed if the brute didn't whirl around and roughen up, and clatter his tusks until I actually had to come to a halt!"
"I don't want to walk in these woods any more," said Kathleen with sudden conviction. "Please come home, all of us."
"Nonsense," he said. "I won't stand for being hustled out of my own woods. Give me that rifle, Geraldine."