“I do not need you,” said the girl, in level tones. “You lied to me.”
His expression changed. She read in it the desperation of guilt.
“I can explain,” he said hurriedly, “but not now. There isn’t time. Wait here. I’ll be back. I’ll be back the instant I can get away.”
As he spoke, he was halfway down the rock, headed for the lower trail. The bushes closed behind him.
Painfully Polly Brewster made her way down the treacherous footing of the cliff path to her place on the rock. From her bag she drew one of her cards, wrote slowly and carefully a few words, found a dry stick, set it between two rocks, and pinned her message to it. Then she ran, as helpless humans run from the scourge of their own hearts.
Half an hour later the hermit, sweat-covered and breathless, returned to the rock. For a moment he gazed about, bewildered by the silence. The white card caught his eye. He read its angular scrawl.
“I wish never to see you again. Never! Never! Never!”
A sulphur-yellow inquisitor, of a more insinuating manner than the former participant in their conversation, who had been examining the message on his own account, flew to the top of the cliff.
“Qu’est-ce qu’elle dit? Qu’est-ce qu’elle dit?” he demanded.
For the first time in his adult life the beetle man threw a stone at a bird.