get those lips of hers. A shudder of
cold passed over his frame.

He strode forward and put his hand on Harold's arm. "Wait," he
commanded. "There's one thing more."

Harold paused, and the darkness was not so dense but that this face was
vaguely revealed, sullen and questioning.

"There's one thing more," Bill repeated again. "I've brought you here.
I've given you your chance--for redemption. God knows if I had my
choice I'd have killed you first. She's not going to know about the
squaw, unless you tell her. These matters are all for you to decide, I
won't interfere."

He paused, and Harold waited. And his eager ears caught the faint throb
of feeling in the low, almost muttered notes.

"But don't forget I'm there," he went on. "I work for her--until she
goes out of my charge and I'm her guide, her protector, the guardian of
her happiness. That's all I care about--her happiness. I don't know
whether or not I did wrong to bring a squaw man to her--but if you're
man enough to hold her love and make her happy, it doesn't matter. But
I give--one warning."

His voice changed. It took on a quality of infinite and immutable
prophecy In the darkness and the silence, the voice might have come
from some higher realm, speaking the irrevocable will of the forest
gods.

"She'll be more or less in your power at times, up here. I won't be
with you every minute. But if you take one jot of advantage of that
fact--either in word or deed--I'll break you and smash you and kill
you in my hands!"

He waited an instant for the words to go home. Harold shivered as if
with cold. And because in his mind already lay the vision of their
meeting, he uttered one more sentence of instructions. He was a strong
man, this son of the forest--and no man dared deny the trait--but he
could not steel himself to see that first kiss. The sight of the girl,
fluttering and enraptured in Harold's arms, the soft loveliness of her
lips on his, was more than he could bear.

"Go on in," he said. "She's waiting for you."

And she was. She had waited six years, dreaming all the while of his
return. Harold went in, and left his savior to the doubtful mercy of
the winter forest, the darkness that had crept into his heart, and the
hush that might have been the utter silence of death itself had it not
been for the image of a faint, enraptured cry, the utterance of dreams
come true, within the cabin door.

XVI

When Virginia heard