Say it plainer!"
But Aunt Agatha tranquil was incoherent.
Aunt Agatha frightened and hysterical was utterly beyond control.
"And very beautiful too," she sobbed. "And Norman, poor fellow, was
quite mad about her--for all she was an Indian girl--though her father
was white and a Spaniard, I will say that for her. Not even so dark as
you are, Diane, and shy and lovely enough to turn any man's head--much
less your father's--though your grandfather stormed and threatened to
kill them both and only for Grant he would have. And when an Indian
from the Everglades told Norman that--that she really hadn't been
married before but just a--mother like Carl's mother, my dear--"
But Diane was gone, stumbling headlong from the tent. Aunt Agatha was
to remember her white agonized face for many a day.
CHAPTER XLVI
IN THE FOREST
With the darkening of the night a wind sprang up over the bleak, black
expanse of lake and swept with a sigh through the forest on the shore.
It was a wind from the east which drove a film of cloud across the
stars and bore a hint of rain in its freshness. The rain itself
pattering presently through the forest fell upon the huddled figure of
a girl who lay face downward upon the ground among the trees.
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