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Updated: September 3, 2025
He drew his hand across his eyes, took a piece of his cheek between his thumb and first finger and pinched it to see if he were awake, then read the words again, this time aloud: "I have discovered your treachery and fled. Pepeeta." "Treachery?" he said. "What t-t-treachery? Whose t-t-treachery? Fled? Fled with whom, fled where? I wonder if I am still d-d-drunk?"
It was impossible to conceive that he had ever been young, and there seemed a bitter irony in the effort of such a man to judge the cause of a love like that which pleaded for satisfaction in the hearts of David and Pepeeta, and to pronounce upon the destinies of those whose souls were still throbbing with passion. But such was the purpose of the man.
Still under the spell of strange spiritual emotions to which her sensitive spirit vibrated like the strings of an Æolian harp, Pepeeta rose, and placing her hands in those of her lover, looked up into his face with a touching confidence, an almost adoring love. It was more like the bridal of two pure spirits than the betrothal of a man and woman!
While they were waiting for the fish to fry, Pepeeta regaled her enchanted listener with such fragments of the story of her gypsy life as she could piece together out of the wrecks of that time. He was overpowered with astonishment, and the idea that he was sitting opposite to a real gypsy, at the mouth of a cave, filled up the measure of his romantic fancy and perfected his happiness.
Except for this ceaseless murmur, silence brooded over the place, for the song-birds had hidden themselves in the wood, and the two intruders upon the sacred privacy, by an unconscious sense of fitness, spoke in whispers. "Beautiful!" said Pepeeta. "Hush! See there!"
There were many beautiful things to be seen in the winter woods; snow hanging in plumes from the trees, the smoke of the cabin curling into the still air, rabbits browsing on the low bushes, the woodsman standing in triumph over a fallen tree; but when, on the days of her visits to the exile, Pepeeta entered the clearing and the deer, perceiving her approach, ran to greet her in flying leaps, bounded around her, looked up into her face with its gentle eyes, ate the food she offered and licked the hand of its mistress David thought that there was nothing more beautiful in the world.
I will dedicate this year to meditation and prayer. Pepeeta, wilt thou join me in this resolution? If thou wilt, let the betrothal of this night be one of soul to soul and both our souls to God! Give me thine hand."
Pepeeta took her place in this hospitable household as an orphan child might have done. Just as a flower unfolding from a plant, or a bird building its nest in a tree is almost instantly "at home," so it was with Pepeeta.
Just at sunset, he crossed the bridge over the brook which formed the boundary line of the farm, and as he did so heard a light footstep. Lifting his eyes, he saw Pepeeta, who at that very instant stepped out of the low bushes which lined the trail she had been following. Her appearance was as sudden as an apparition and her beauty dazzled him.
Curiosity was satisfied at eight o'clock in the evening, for at that hour Doctor Paracelsus Aesculapius, as he fantastically called himself, opened the doors of his traveling apothecary shop and exposed his "universal panacea" for sale, while at the same time, "Pepeeta, the Queen of Fortune Tellers," entered her booth and spread out upon a table the paraphernalia by which she undertook to discover the secrets of the future.
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