Whatever speculation there had been, she
had never been obliged to tell any one of what race she was. She spoke
English with no perceptible accent, as she spoke Spanish, Italian,
French, Hungarian and Greek; and there was nothing in her speech marking
her as different from the ordinary Western woman. Certainly she would
have been considered pure English among the polyglot population of
Manitou.
What must she say? What was it her duty to say? She was living the life
of a British woman, she was as much a Gorgio in her daily existence as
this man be side her. Manitou was as much home--nay, it was a thousand
times more home--than the shifting habitat of the days when they wandered
from the Caspians to John o' Groat's.
For years all traces of the past had been removed as completely as though
the tide had washed over them; for years it had been so, until the
fateful day when she ran the Carillon Rapids. That day saw her whole
horizon alter; that day saw this man beside her enter on the stage of her
life. And on that very day, also, came Jethro Fawe out of the Past and
demanded her return.
That had been a day of Destiny. The old, panting, unrealized, tempestuous
longing was gone. She was as one who saw danger and faced it, who had a
fight to make and would make it.
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