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"Are you come at last, Martin?" says she in her sweet voice "Supper is ready this hour and oat's-flesh I made a stew, but fear 'tis spoiled"

"Indeed," says I, "it s!"

"I had no salt nor spices, Martin, but in a little garden yonder that is all run wild, I found soht reat turtle-shell was as savoury a stew as ever greeted eyes of hungry man

By her directions, and will all due care, I lifted this fro it with stones we sat down side by side And now she showshers into the stew I did the like, and though we had no salt (the which set h we lacked for bread, a very excellent lory all about us

The s at a rill that murmured hard by, I ht struck chill) and by the ti ainstI saw this, nodded her head, scorning all subterfuge

"I feared you had met with some mischance and lay hurt, Martin--or worse--"

"You mean dead?"

"Aye, dead"

"Would it have mattered so much?"

"Only that I should have died likewise!"

"Because of the loneliness?" says I

"Indeed," she sighed, staring into the fire, "because of the loneliness"

"I serve sos?"

"Yes, Martin, you teach a wo weak and defenceless she reat coth 'Twas foolish of arht eat"

"'Tis all forgot!" says I, hastily

"And as for the ht ever make me believe you had committed murder--or ever could You that under all your bitterness are still the sao"

"And why should you be so sure of all this and I but what I a also into the fire

"Mayhap because I am a woood"