He stared about him sullenly. "Curse them!" he said aloud. "Why could
they not have died and rotted before we heard of them?"

Dorthe, at the sound of a human voice, sprang to her feet with a cry.
The man, too, gave a cry--the ecstatic cry of the unwilling hermit who
looks again upon the human face.

"Dorthe! Thou? I thought thou wast dead--drowned in the sea."

Dorthe had forgotten the meaning of words, but her name came to her
familiarly. Then something stirred within her, filling her eyes with
tears. She went forward and touched the stranger, drawing her hand over
his trembling arms.

"Do you not remember me, Dorthe?" asked the man, softly. "I am the
priest--was, for I am not fit for the priesthood now. I have forgotten
how to pray."

She shook her head, but smiling, the instinct of gregariousness
awakening.

He remembered his needs, and made a gesture which she understood. She
took his hand, and led him from the forest to her cave. She struck fire
from flint into a heap of fagots beneath a swinging pot. In a little
time she set before him a savoury mess of birds. He ate of it
ravenously. Dorthe watched him with deep curiosity. She had never seen
hunger before. She offered him a gourd of water, and he drank thirstily.
When he raised his face his cheeks were flushed, his eyes brighter.

He took her hand and drew her down beside him.