“I see that you are alone,” said the Wanderer. “Have you always been so?”
“Always. I have had an odd life. You could not understand it, if I told you of it.”
“And yet I have been lonely too--and I believe I was once unhappy, though I cannot think of any reason for it.”
“You have been lonely--yes. But yours was another loneliness more limited, less fatal, more voluntary. It must seem strange to you--I do not even positively know of what nation I was born.”
Her companion looked at her in surprise, and his curiosity increased.
“I know nothing of myself,” she continued. “I remember neither father nor mother. I grew up in the forest, among people who did not love me, but who taught me, and respected me as though I were their superior, and who sometimes feared me. When I look back, I am amazed at their learning and their wisdom--and ashamed of having learned so little.”
“No one ever accused me of that,” she said. “Will you believe it? I do not even know where that place was. I cannot tell you even the name of the kingdom in which it lay. I learned a name for it and for the forest, but those names are in no map that has ever fallen into my hands. I sometimes feel that I would go to the place if I could find it.”
“It is very strange. And how came you here?”
“I was told the time had come. We started at night. It was a long journey, and I remember feeling tired as I was never tired before or since. They brought me here, they left me in a religious house among nuns. Then I was told that I was rich and free. My fortune was brought with me. That, at least, I know. But those who received it and who take care of it for me, know no more of its origin than I myself. Gold tells no tales, and the secret has been well kept. I would give much to know the truth--when I am in the humour.”
“You see why it is that I find the idea of a brother so hard to understand,” she added, and then was silent.
“You have all the more need of understanding it, my dear friend,” the Wanderer answered, looking at her thoughtfully.
“Yes--perhaps so. I can see what friendship is. I can almost guess what it would be to have a brother.”
“And have you never thought of more than that?” He asked the question in his calmest and most friendly tone, somewhat deferentially as though fearing lest it should seem tactless and be unwelcome.