cealed. The law would have to take her for him as the decoy took the field-birds, and when that was done he could show no right to her; Joconda's letter would be nothing before the law, and the Musoncella would be only to them the love-child of a galley-slave, to be thrust into some public institute at best, and forced into some social groove without regard to how that pressure hurt or drove her desperate. Very possibly the law would only treat her as a nomad, as a vagabond, and he himself could have no standing-point of legal right from which to oblige her to receive his benefits.
What could he do? It was a difficulty which perplexed and began to sadden him.
This creature, who seemed to him so beautiful, so fearless, and so redundant of animated life that she appeared a very incarnation of Artemis, was happy as she now was, innocent as the wild doe of her own oak-glades, and bold enough to defend her innocence were it menaced.
Would not interference with her do more harm than good?
He knew the danger that accompanies meddlers, and he was of too modest a temper to be sure of his own wisdom. He
