ht he understood.

"I know it has been a terrible winter for you, dear," he had said to
her many times. "But you mustn't worry so much about me. I'll be on my
feet again--soon." He had always emphasized that. "I'll be on my feet
again soon!"

Once, in the breaking terror of her heart, she had almost told him the
truth. Afterward she had thanked God for giving her the strength to
keep it back. It was day--for they spoke in terms of day and
night--when Rydal, half drunk, had dragged her into his cabin, and she
had fought him until her hair was down about her in tangled
confusion--and she had told Peter that it was the wind. After that,
instead of evading him, she had played Rydal with her wits, while
praying to God for help. It was impossible to tell Peter. He had aged
steadily and terribly in the last two weeks. His eyes were sunken into
deep pits. His blond hair was turning gray over the temples. His cheeks
were hollowed, and there was a different sort of luster in his eyes. He
looked fifty instead of thirty-five. Her heart bled in its agony. She
loved Peter with a wonderful love.

The truth! If she told him that! She could see Peter rising up out of
his bed like a ghost. It would kill him. If he could have seen
Rydal--only an hour before--stopping her out on the deck, taking her in
his arms, and kissing her until his drunken breath and his beard
sickened her! And if he could have heard what Rydal had said! She
shuddered. And suddenly she dropped down on her knees beside Wapi and
took his great head in her arms, unafraid of him--and glad that he had
come.

Then she turned to Peter. "I'm going ashore to see Blake again--now,"
she said. "Wapi will go with me, and I won't be afraid. I insist that I
am right, so please don't object any more, Peter dear."

She bent over and kissed him, and then in spite of his protest, put on
her fur coat and hood, and stood for a moment smiling down at him. The
fear was gone out of her eyes now. It was impossible for him not to
smile at her loveliness. He had always been proud of that. He reached
up a thin hand and plucked tenderly at the shining little tendrils of
gold that crept out from under her hood.

"I wish you wouldn't, dear," he pleaded.

How pathetically white, and thin, and weak he was! She kissed him again
and turned quickly to hide the mist in her eyes. At the door she blew
him a kiss from the tip of her big fur mitten, and as she went out she
heard him say in the thin