"I have got them," he said.
The colour came back into her cheeks; she smiled at him in a breathless way.
"You did frighten me," she said. She came slowly back and seated herself on the carpet of fir-needles. He sat down beside her.
"Karen, dear," he said, "you are a brick and I'm a brute. I took your papers this morning. I had to, dear."
And he drew them from his breast pocket and showed them to her.
The girl sat in wide-eyed amazement for a moment. Suddenly her face flushed and the tears flashed in her eyes.
"You have ridiculed me!" she said. "You have treated me like a child!"
"Karen——"
"I will not listen! I shall never listen to you again! You have played with me, hurt me, humiliated me. You have ruled and overruled me! You gained my friendship and treated it—and me—without ceremony. And I let you! I must have been mad——"
Her mouth quivered; she clenched her hands, gazing at him through eyes that glimmered wet: