He had been baffled, repelled, almost frightened by the intensity of that tropical life which wants the sunshine but works in gloom; which seems to be all grace of colour and form, all brilliance, all smiles, but is only the blossoming of the dead; whose mystery holds the promise of joy and beauty, yet contains nothing but poison and decay.

He had been frightened by the vague perception of danger before, but now, as he looked at that life again, his eyes seemed able to pierce the fantastic veil of creepers and leaves, to look past the solid trunks, to see through the forbidding gloom--and the mystery was disclosed--enchanting, subduing, beautiful.

He looked at the woman.

Through the checkered light between them she appeared to him with the impalpable distinctness of a dream.

The very spirit of that land of mysterious forests, standing before him like an apparition behind a transparent veil--a veil woven of sunbeams and shadows.
She had approached him still nearer.