Do you remember the night of
the storm, the night when you asked me if I could save you from your
cousin? I rose early the next morning and digged a grave for the
picture. It is buried deep,--with all that I once thought that it
implied. If I confess now that it implied little you must find excuses
for me. I--my heart was in the camp in those days. The rest was
pastime. I have left pastimes behind, madame."
She would not look at me, yet I felt her change. The flitting,
indescribable air of elation that marked her from all women in the
world came back. She was again the woman of the forest, the woman who
had waked with a song and looked with unhurried pulse into the face of
danger. I breathed hard and bent to her, but she kept her eyes away.
"The fair little French face," she murmured. "You should not have put
it in the cold earth. You were needlessly cruel, monsieur."
I bent lower. "I was not cruel. I gave her a giant sepulchre. That
is over. But I--I shall have another miniature. I know a skilled man
in Paris. Some time--some time I mean to have your portrait in your
Indian blouse; in your skin blouse with the sun in your hair." My free
hand suddenly crept to her shoulder, "May I have it? May I have it,
madame?"
I cannot remember.
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