At this the painter looked at his sister and she at him. For outside this city of Lucifram there was a tremendous forest full of jungles, and only the pure in spirit and those led by a light of superhuman brightness could pass through it.
“And did you pass through the forest unhurt?” he asked.
“Yes. We were pleasant company to each other. But I lost one of my garden clogs. I think that was very unfortunate, because I never missed it till it was too late to turn back.”
She spoke evidently without any knowledge of the terrors of the forest. But whatever reticence she showed about her journey was from now respected by them.
“Then you have no home to return to?” said Miss Crokerly, after a pause, during which she had revolved things in her mind.
“No,” said Rosalie simply, and her wistful eyes filled with anxiety and shadow.
“You must spend the night here, then, as I said before, and in the morning we will arrange things. Come with me.”
Then Sir John shook hands with her in that grave, kind way of his, and wished her good-night, and then went back to his easy-chair and paper.
He himself knew something of the terrors and blackness of the forest. It had been responsible for some of his best work. But he was a man whose hair was turning grey, and this girl, whose name, by the way, he had forgotten to ask, appeared so very young. He was interested in, and felt sorry for her, and yet could scarcely credit the tale that she had come hither from the forest; on second thoughts it seemed so utterly improbable.
Yet where else anywhere upon Lucifram could that brilliant frog have come from—or Rosalie’s expressive, shining eyes?
So when his sister came back later in the evening, he said:
“I think, for the present, at any rate, we must keep her. Providence has sent her to us, and converts a duty into pleasure.”
“Yes, indeed. She has had supper and gone to bed. And strange to say,” she continued reflectively, “although for the last twenty-five years I have been trying to cure myself of impulsiveness as one of my besetting sins, and was just thinking as I drove home to-night that at last I had quite succeeded, yet now I cannot help loving her at sight, as much,” she added softly, “as if she were my own sister.”