Paul caught eagerly at the hand that held the letter, and would have drawn her to him; but she put him aside gravely but sweetly.
"Read that letter!" "Tell me of YOURSELF first!" he broke out passionately.

"Why you fled from me, and why I now find you here, by the merest chance, without a word of summons from yourself, Yerba?
Tell me who is with you?
Are you free and your own mistress--free to act for yourself and me?
Speak, darling--don't be cruel! Since that night I have longed for you, sought for you, and suffered for you every day and hour.

Tell me if I find you the same Yerba who wrote"-- "Read that letter!" "I care for none but the one you left me.

I have read and reread it, Yerba--carried it always with me.

See! I have it here!" He was in the act of withdrawing it from his breast-pocket, when she put up her hand piteously.
"Please, Paul, please--read this letter first!" There was something in her new supplicating grace, still retaining the faintest suggestion of her old girlish archness, that struck him.