you. Please do not laugh at my fright! I am really quite bold in the calm and the light, But when a storm gathers, or darkness prevails, My courage deserts me, my bravery fails, And I want to hide somewhere and cover my ears, And give myself up to weak womanish tears." 

 Her ripple of talk allowed Roger Montrose A few needed moments to calm and compose His excited emotions; to curb and control The turbulent feelings that surged through his soul At the sudden encounter. 

 "I quite understand," He said in a voice that was under command Of his will, "All your fears in a storm of this kind. There is something uncanny and weird in the wind; Intangible, viewless, it speeds on its course, And forests and oceans must yield to its force. What art has constructed with patience and toil, The wind in one second of time can despoil. It carries destruction and death and despair, Yet no man can follow it into its lair And bind it or stay it—this thing without form. Ah! there comes the rain! we are caught in the storm. Put my coat on your shoulders and come with me where Yon rock makes a shelter—I often sit there To watch the great conflicts 'twixt tempest and sea. Let me lie at your feet!  'Tis the last time, Miss Lee, I shall see you, perchance, in this life, who can say? I leave on the morrow at break o' the day." 

"I quite understand,"

 Mabel: 

 Indeed? Why, how sudden! and may I inquire The reason you leave us without one desire To return? for your words seem a final adieu. 

 Roger: 

 I never expect to return, that is true, Yet my wish is to stay. 

 Mabel: 

 Are you not your own master? 

 Roger: 

 Alas, yes! and therein lies the cause of disaster. Myself bids me go, my calm, reasoning part, The will is the man, not the poor, foolish heart, Which is ever at war with the intellect. So I silence its clamoring voices and go. Were I less my own master, I then might remain. 

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