the passing of the two years of silence and gloom
seemed to be the winning of something brighter to follow.

CHAPTER XXX--THE LESSON OF THE WILDERNESS

In the West the two years flew. Time seemed to go faster there, because
life was more strenuous. Harold, being mainly alone, found endless work
always before him. From daylight to dark labour never ceased; and for
his own part he never wished that it should. In the wilderness, and
especially under such conditions as held in Northern Alaska, labour is
not merely mechanical. Every hour of the day is fraught with danger in
some new form, and the head has to play its part in the strife against
nature. In such a life there is not much time for thinking or brooding.

At first, when the work and his surroundings were strange to him, Harold
did many useless things and ran many unnecessary risks. But his
knowledge grew with experience. Privations he had in plenty; and all the
fibre of his body and the strength of his resolution and endurance were
now and again taxed to their utmost. But with a man of his nature and
race the breaking strain is high; and endurance and resolution are
qualities which develop with practice.

Gradually his mind came back to normal level; he had won seemingly
through the pain that shadowed him. Without anguish he could now think,
remember, look forward. Then it was that the kindly wisdom of the
American came back to him, and came to stay. He began to examine himself
as to his own part of the unhappy transaction; and stray moments of
wonderment came as to whether the fault may not, at the very base, have
his own. He began to realise that it is insufficient in this strenuous
world to watch and wait; to suppress one's self; to put aside, in the
wish to benefit others, all the hopes, ambitions, cravings which make for
personal gain.

Thus it was that Harold's thoughts, ever circling round Stephen, came
back with increasing insistence to his duty towards her. He often
thought, and with a bitter feeling against himself that it came too late,
of the dying trust of her father:

'Guard her and cherish her, as if you were indeed my son and she your
sister . . . If it should be that you and Stephen should find that there
is another affection between you remember I sanction it. But give her
time! I trust that to you! She is young, and the world is all before
her. Let her choose . . . And be loyal to her, if it is another! It may
be