How long it seemed since that
day when love first peeped forth from their hearts like a young face at
the lattice of a sunlit window. Fleda had warned him of trouble, and that
trouble had come!
In his mind she was a woman like none he had ever known; she could think
greatly, act largely, give tremendously. As he stood waiting, the
wonderful, ample life of her seemed to come like a wave towards him. In
his philosophy, intellect alone had never been the governing influence.
Intellect must find its play through the senses, be vitalized by the
elements of physical life, or it could not prevail. There was not one
sensual strain in him, but with a sensuous mind he loved the vital thing.
He was sure that presently Gabriel Druse would disappear, leaving her
behind with him. That was what he meant to ask her to-day--to be and stay
with him always. He knew that the Romanys were gathering in the prairie.
They had been heard of here and there, and some of them had been seen
along the Sagalac, though he knew nothing of that dramatic incident in
the woods when Fleda was kidnapped and Jethro Fawe vanished from the
scene.
As Fleda came towards him, under the same trees which had shielded her
from the sun months ago--now nearly naked and bare--something in her look
and bearing sharply caught his interest.
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