When she
reached his side her proud head fell, then the drooping shoulders bent
lower and lower till the uncertain knees at last failed her, and she
sank trembling on the cushion at his side with her arms about his
face. It was the attitude of protection, not that of a weak craving
for it. The fierce pain for which he asked her pity could arise from
nothing else but his love for her. This was the reasoning of the
simple savage--a reasoning that reached the hitherto unsounded depths
of passion and pathos in her nature. The young man, who bore in his
heart a bitter recollection of the scornful repulse offered by one
beautiful girl, could not resist the matchless tenderness so freely
given by another. He laid his face wearily against her arm, and she
bent over him murmuring words of uncontrollable love and pity.
Afterwards he asked himself what in the name of all the powers of evil
he meant by it; but this was some days afterwards. A long tramp
through the frozen woods in search of game had brought him a single
wild animal and a great many sober thoughts. In the rough log house in
which he and his companions were camping for a week, there was neither
room nor opportunity for private meditation; but the conviction came
to him with the luminous abruptness of lightning that he had used this
ignorant girl merely as a salve for his wounded vanity, and cruelly
deceived her by so doing.
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