"Yasma! Yasma!" I remonstrated, peering down into those wistful brown eyes that burned with some dark-smoldering fire. "What has made you behave so queerly? Tell me, do you no longer care for me? Do you not--do you not love me?" At these words, the graceful head sagged low upon the quivering shoulders. A crimson flush mounted the slender neck, and suffused the soft, well rounded cheeks; the averted eyes told the story they were meant to conceal. Then, without further hesitation, my arms closed once more about her. And again she clung close, this time not with the unconscious eagerness of a child craving protection, but with all the fury and force of her impetuous nature. A few minutes later, a surprising change had come over her. We had left the woods, and she was sitting at my side in a little glade by a brooklet. The tears had been dried from her eyes, which were still red and swollen; but in her face there was a happy glow, and I thought she had never looked quite so beautiful before. For a while we sat gazing in silence at the tattered and yet majestic line of the forest, a phantom pageant whose draperies of russet and cinnamon and fiery crimson and dusty gold were lovely almost beyond belief. A strange enchantment had come over us; and we were reluctant to break the charm. Yet there were questions that kept stirring in my mind; questions to which finally I was forced to give words. "Tell me, Yasma," I asked, suddenly, "why have you been behaving so queerly? Why were you running away from me? Is there something about me that frightened you?" It was as if my words had brought back the evil spell. Her features contracted into a frown; the darkness returned to her eyes, which again burned with some unspoken sorrow; a look of fear, almost like that of a haunted creature, flitted across her face. "Oh, you must never ask that!" she protested, in such dismay that I pitied her even while I wondered. "You must never ask--never, never!" "Why not?" I questioned. "What mystery can there be to hide?" "There is no mystery," she declared. And then, with quick inconsistency, "But even if there were, you should not ask!" "But why?" I demanded. "Now, Yasma, you mustn't treat me like a five-year-old. What have I done to offend you? Tell me, what have I done?" "It is nothing that you have done," she mumbled, avoiding my gaze. "Then is it something someone else has done? Come, let me know just what is wrong!" "I cannot tell you! I cannot!" she cried, with passion. And, rising abruptly and turning to me with eyes aflame, "Oh, why must you insist on knowing? Haven't I done everything to protect you from knowing? Do you think it has been easy--easy for me to treat you like this? But it is wrong to love you! wrong even to encourage you! Only evil can come of it! Oh, why did you ever, ever have to come among our tribe?"