"Charity! What on earth are you doing here?"
She stared as if he were a vision, so startled by the unexpectedness of
his being there that no words came to her.
"Where were you going? Had you forgotten that I was coming?" he
continued, trying to draw her to him; but she shrank from his embrace.
"I was going away--I don't want to see you--I want you should leave me
alone," she broke out wildly.
He looked at her and his face grew grave, as though the shadow of a
premonition brushed it.
"Going away--from me, Charity?"
"From everybody. I want you should leave me."
He stood glancing doubtfully up and down the lonely forest road that
stretched away into sun-flecked distances.
"Where were you going?'
"Home."
"Home--this way?"
She threw her head back defiantly. "To my home--up yonder: to the
Mountain."
As she spoke she became aware of a change in his face. He was no longer
listening to her, he was only looking at her, with the passionate
absorbed expression she had seen in his eyes after they had kissed on
the stand at Nettleton.
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