r, and she drank a little of the bracing liquid.
Then she pushed the cup away.

He waited beside a moment, curiously anxious. "Give me your hand," he
said.

"Why?"

Cold was her voice, and cold the expression on her face. It seemed to
her that the lines of Bill's face deepened, and his dark eyes grew
stern. But in a moment the expression passed, and she knew she had
wounded him. "Why do you think? I want to test your pulse."

He had seen that she was flushed, and he was in deadly fear that the
plunge into the cold waters had worked an organic injury. He took her
soft, slender wrist in his hand, and she felt the pressure of his little
finger against her pulsing arteries. Then she saw the dark features
light up.

"You haven't any fever," he told her joyfully. "You're just used up
from the experience. And God knows I can't blame you. Go to sleep
again if you like."

She dozed off again, and for a little while he was busy outside the
cabin, cutting fuel for the night's blaze. He stole in once to look at
her and then turned again down the moose trail to the river. He had
been certain before that the others had gone; now he only wanted to make
sure.

The long afternoon was at an end when he returned. He had gazed across
the gray waters and called again and again, but except for the echo of
his shout, the wilderness silence had been inviolate. Virginia was
awake, but still miserable and dejected in her blankets. They talked a
little, softly and quietly, about their chances, but he saw that she was
not yet in a frame of mind to look the situation squarely in the face.
Then he cooked the last meal of the day.

"I don't want anything," she told him, when again he proffered food. "I
only want to die. I wish I had died--in the river last night. Months
and months--in these awful woods and this awful cabin--and nothing
but death in the end."

He did not condemn her for the utterance, even in his thoughts. He was
imaginative enough to understand her despair and sympathize with it. He
remembered the sheltered life she had always lived. Besides, she was
his goddess; he could only humble himself before her.

"But I won't let you die, Miss Tremont. I'll care for you. You won't
even have to lift your hand, if you don't want to. You'll be happier,
though, if you do; it would break some of the monotony. There's a
little old phonograph on the stand, and some old magazines under your
cot. The weeks will