did you get lost?”
“The same prevailing stupidity,” he laughed. “Though I didn’t realize it for that quality. Just thought I was smart, you know – conceit. I – I – well, I didn’t get on so very well at the lumber camp I’d joined. I wasn’t used to work of that sort and there didn’t seem to be room, even in the woods, for a greenhorn. I thought it was easy enough. I could find my way anywhere, in any wilderness, with my outfit. I’d brought that along, or bought it after I left civilization; so one night I left, set out to paddle my own canoe. I paddled it into the rapids, what those fellows called rips, and they ripped me to ruin. Upset, lost all my kit, tried to find my way back, wandered and walked forever and ever, it seemed to me, and – you know the rest.”
“But I do not. Did you keep hallooing all that long time? or how did it happen we heard you?”
“I was in a rocky place when that tornado came and it was near the water. I had just sense enough left to know they could protect me and crept under them. Oh! that was awful – awful!”
“It must have been, but I was so deep in our cave that I heard but little of it. Uncle and Angelique thought I was out in it and lost. They suffered about it, and uncle tried to make a fire and was sick. We had just got home when we heard you.”
“After the storm I crawled out and I saw you in the boat. You seemed to have come right out of the earth and I shouted, or tried to. I kept on shouting, even after you were out of sight and then I got discouraged and tried once more to find a road out.”
“I was singing so loud I suppose I didn’t hear, at first. I’m so sorry. But it’s all right now. You’re safe, and some way will be found to get you to your home, or that lumber camp, if you’d rather.”
“Suppose I do not wish to go to either place? What then?”
Margot stared. “Not – wish – to go – to your own dear – home?”
The stranger smiled at the amazement of her face.
“Maybe not. Especially as I don’t know how I would be received there. What if I was foolish and didn’t know when I was well off? What if I ran away, meaning to stay away forever?”
“Well, if it hadn’t been for the rocks, and me, it would have been forever. But God made the rocks and gave them to you for a shelter; and He made me, and sent me out on the lake so you should see me and be found. If He wants you to go back to that home He’ll find a way. Now, it’s queer. Here we’ve been talking ever so long yet I don’t know who you are. You know all of us: Uncle Hugh Dutton, Angelique Ricord, and me. I’m Margot Romeyn. What is your name?”
“Mine? Oh! I’m Adrian Wadislaw. A good-for-nought, some people say. Young Wadislaw, the sinner, son of old Wadislaw, the saint.”
The answer was given recklessly, while the dark young face grew sadly bitter and defiant.
After a moment, something startled Margot from the shocked surprise with which she had heard this harsh reply. It was a sigh, almost a groan, as from one who had been more deeply startled even than herself. Turning, she saw the master standing in the doorway, staring at their visitor as if he had seen a ghost and nearly as white as one himself.
CHAPTER V
IN ALADDIN LAND
It seemed to Margot, watching, that it was an endless time her uncle stood there gazing with that startled look upon their guest. In reality it was but a moment. Then he passed his hand over his eyes, as one who would brush away a mist, and came forward. He was still unduly pale, but he spoke in a courteous, almost natural manner, and quietly accepted the chair Margot hastened to bring him.
“You are getting rested, Mr. – ”
“Oh! please don’t ‘Mister’ me, sir. You’ve been so good to me and I’m not used to the title. Though, in my scratches and wood-dirt, this young lady did take me for an old fellow. Yes, thanks to her thoughtfulness, I’ve found myself again, and I’m just ‘Adrian,’ if you’ll be so kind.”
There was something very winning in this address, and it suited the elder man well. The stranger was scarcely out of boyhood and reminded the old collegian of other lads whom he had known and loved. “Wadislaw” was not a particularly pleasing name that one should dwell upon it, unless necessary. “Adrian” was better and far more common. Neither did it follow that this person was of a family he remembered far too well; and so Mr. Dutton reassured himself. In any case the youth was now “the stranger within the gates” and therefore entitled to the best.
“Adrian, then. We are a simple household, following the old habit of early to bed and to rise. You must be tired enough to sleep anywhere, and there is another big lounge in my study. You would best occupy it to-night, and to-morrow Angelique will fix you better quarters. Few guests favor us in our far-away home,” he finished with a smile that was full of hospitality.
Adrian rose at once and bidding Margot and Angelique good-night, followed his host into a big room which, save for the log walls, might have been the library of some city home. It was a room which somehow gave him the impression of vastness, liberality, and freedom – an enclosed bit of the outside forest. Like each of the other apartments he had seen it had its great fireplace and its blazing logs, not at all uncomfortable now in the chill that had come after the storm.
But he was too worn out to notice much more than these details, and without undressing, dropped upon the lounge and drew the Indian blanket over him. His head rested upon great pillows stuffed with fragrant spruce needles, and this perfume of the woods soothed him into instant sleep.
But Hugh Dutton stood for many minutes, gravely studying the face of the unconscious stranger. It was a comely, intelligent face, though marred by self-will and indulgence, and with each passing second its features grew more and more painfully familiar. Why, why, had it come into his distant retreat to disturb his peace? A peace that it had taken fifteen years of life to gain, that had been achieved only by bitter struggle with self and with all that was lowest in a noble nature.
“Alas! And I believed I had at last learned to forgive!”
But none the less because of the bitterness would this man be unjust. His very flesh recoiled from contact with that other flesh, fair as it might be in the sight of most eyes, yet he forced himself to draw with utmost gentleness the covering over the sleeper’s shoulders, and to interpose a screening chair between him and the firelight.
“Well, one may at least control his actions, if not his thoughts,” he murmured and quietly left the place.
A few moments later he stood regarding Margot, also, as she lay in sleep, and all the love of his strong nature rose to protect her from the sorrow which she would have to bear some time but – not yet! Oh! not yet! Then he turned quickly and went out of doors.
There had been nights in this woodlander’s life when no roof could cover him. When even the forest seemed to suffocate, and when he had found relief only upon the bald bare top of that rocky height which crowned the island. On such nights he had gone out early and come home with the daybreak, and none had known of his absence, save, now and then, the faithful Angelique, who knew the master’s story but kept it to herself.
Margot had never guessed of these midnight expeditions, nor understood the peculiar love and veneration her guardian had for that mountain top. She better loved the depths of the wonderful forest, with its flowers and ferns, and its furred or feathered creatures. She was dreaming of these, the next morning, when her uncle’s cheery whistle called her to get up.
A
