He chattered on for some time. Then he looked at
his watch and declared that he must descend.
"The steamer is coming soon," he said. "Now I leave you and I hope
that I have done good. Think how to help me and yourself. What she
now feels to you I cannot tell. Your turn may come. I trust so. I am
not at all jealous. But be warned. This red man--he is no friend to
you or me. You seek him again to-day. So be it. And if you find him,
be careful of your skin. Not that a man can protect his skin against
fate. We meet at supper."
He swung away, singing a canzonet, and quickly vanished, while
Brendon, overwhelmed by this extraordinary conversation, sat for an
hour motionless and deep in thought. He could hardly plough his path
through what appeared a jungle of flagrant falsehood. But where
another man had striven to find underlying purpose in this diatribe
and consider Doria's object in choosing him for a confessor,
Brendon, while swift enough to regard the attack on Jenny as foul
and false, yet did not hesitate to believe that which his own desire
drove him to believe.
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