All the way to the place where he had first seen her, he followed; but at
the cedar thicket he stopped. For a long time, he stood there; while the
twilight failed and the night came. Slowly,--in the soft darkness with
bowed head, as one humbled and ashamed,--he went back down the canyon to
the little glade, and to the camp.
Chapter XIX
The Three Gifts and Their Meanings
The next day, Aaron King--too distracted to paint--idled all the afternoon
in the glade. But the girl did not come. When it was dark, he returned to
camp; telling himself that she would never come again; that his rude
yielding to the lure of her wild beauty had rightly broken forever the
charm of their intimacy--and he cursed himself--as many a man has
cursed--for that momentary lack of self-control.
But the following afternoon, as the artist worked,--bent upon quickly
finishing his picture of the place that seemed now to reproach him with
its sweet atmosphere of sacred purity,--he heard, as he had heard that
first day, the low music of her voice blending with the music of the
mountain stream. Scarce daring to move, he sat as though absorbed in his
work--listening with all his heart, for some sound of her approach, other
than the melody of her song that grew more and more distinct.
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