What they said on the way to the cabin must have been unimportant. I suppose Jerry told her about his routine at the Manor and something of what I had taught him of woodcraft, but I think that she was very reticent in speaking of herself. No doubt her unceremonious visit to our domain and the unusual intimacy of their conversation had made it seem necessary to her to preserve her incognito, or perhaps it was coquetry, which no woman, however placed, is quite without. As far as I have been able to learn, they were as two children, the girl's mind as well as her actions, in spite of her sophistication, reflecting the artlessness of her companion. The damage that she had done, as I was afterwards to discover, was mainly by the force of suggestion. She assumed the absurd premises of modernity, drew her own preposterous conclusions and Jerry drank them in, absorbed them as he did all information, like a sponge.
Having decided upon a course of action, I lost no time in setting forth, following the Sweetwater to the wall and then, not finding Jerry, making as though by instinct for the cabin. Perhaps I may be pardoned for approaching the place with cautious footsteps. I was justified, I think, by the anxiety of the moment and the fear of a damage that might be irreparable. I am sure that the somber shade of old John Benham guided me upon my way and made light my footsteps as I crept through the bushes and peered through the window of the cabin.
There upon the floor, before the hearth, in which some fagots were burning, sat Jerry and the minx, as thick as thieves, oblivious of the fall of night, wrapped in their own conversation and in themselves. I am willing to admit that the girl was pretty, though from the glimpses I had of it, her profile gave no suggestion of the classical ideals of beauty, for her nose made a short line far from regular and her hair, though carelessly dressed, was worn, in some absurd modern fashion with which I was unfamiliar. And yet in a general way I may say that there seemed to be no doubt as to her comeliness. She was quite small and crouched as she was upon the floor before the fire she even seemed childish--quite too unimportant a creature to have made such a hullabaloo in this small world of ours.