"Madam, a long time ago I used to slip to the door of the dining-room of the little hotel in the West and peep in at him. They said he was bad, that he would kill; but he came like a cavalier, with his spurs jingling, and fascinated me. I felt that my own spirit if turned loose would be as wild as his, for had not my forefathers fought on the sea till the waves were bloody about them, and had they not dashed madly into wild lands? I peeped in at him; I did not speak to him; but I watched for his coming. And late at night I have lain awake to hear his wild song in the bar-room, just below me. One day I met him in the passage-way, and looked into his eyes, with my heart in my own, I feared; and I did not see him again till I came out here. I did not know his name. They called him Hell-in-the-Mud." Mrs. Goodwin did not remain quiet to hear the story. With many exclamations, she walked up and down, sometimes with her back toward the girl sitting on the log, her hands in her lap, lying dreamily; sometimes she wheeled about and stood wide of eye and with mouth open. "Well, who ever heard of the like? But are you sure he is the same man?" "Yes. I did not remind him that I had seen him there. He said that he had seen me--he said--" "But what did he say? You must keep nothing back now. It would spoil everything. What did he say?" "He said that he got on his horse and galloped away--from me. He said that he did not want to be--be tangled up." "Well, well, who ever heard of such a thing? And you have met out here. Has he asked you to marry him?" "No, and I do not think he will. I must not marry him." "But you love him." "Bitterly, madam." "Oh, isn't that sweet--I mean, how peculiar a situation it is! No, you can't think of marrying him. It wouldn't at all do. I don't believe he could live tied down to one place. It is a first love and must live only as a romance. It will help you in your art. It will be an inspiration to all your after life, a poem to recite to your daughter in the years to come. I had one, my dear. He was wild, wholly impossible, you might say. And I was foolish enough to have married him, but my mother--she married me to the dear Doctor. And how fortunate it was for both of us, I mean for me and for Arthur! He threw himself away." "But he might not have thrown himself away, madam, if you had married him." "Oh, yes, he was really thrown away before I met him. My mother was right. She knew. She had married the opposite to her romance." "But are women never to marry the men they love?" "Oh, yes, to be sure. We all love our husbands. But we ought not to marry our first love. That would be absurd. It would leave our after life without a sweet regret. My dear, romantic love is one thing and marriage is another. Love is a distress and marriage is business. That's what the Doctor says." "And pardon me, madam, but he lives it." "How? What do you mean?"