had very nearly pitched his own
little offering."

"It was we who sent him to you," Pauline said gently.

"So long as you have not come to fetch him away," Naudheim muttered.

Pauline shook her head.

"We have come," she said, "because we care for him, because we were
anxious to know whether he had come to his own. We will go away the
moment you send us."

"You will have some tea," Naudheim growled, a little more graciously.
"Saton, man, be hospitable. It is goat's milk, and none too sweet at
that, and I won't answer for the butter."

Saton spoke little. Pauline was content to watch him. They drank tea
out of thick china cups, but over their conversation there was always
a certain reserve. Naudheim listened and watched, like a mother
jealous of strangers who might rob her of her young. After tea,
however, he disappeared from the room for a few moments, and Rochester
walked toward the window.

"It is very good of you to come, Pauline," Saton said. "I shall work
all the better for this little glimpse of you."

"Will the work," she asked softly, "never be done?"

He shook his head.

"Why should it? One passes from field to field, and our lives are not
long enough, nor our brains great enough, to reach the place where we
may call halt."

"Do you mean," she asked, "that you will live here all your days?"

"Why not?" he answered. "I have tried other things, and you know what
they made of me. If I live here till I am as old as Naudheim, I shall
only be suffering a just penance."

"But you are young," she murmured. "There are things in the world
worth having. There is a life there worth living. Solitude such as
this is the greatest panacea the world could offer for all you have
been through. But it is not meant to last. We want you back again,
Bertrand."

His eyes were suddenly on fire. He shrank a little away from her.

"Don't!" he begged. "Don't, Pauline. I am living my punishment here,
and I have borne it without once looking back. Don't make it harder."

"I do not wish to make it harder," she declared, "and yet I meant what
I said. It is not right that you should spend all your days here. It
is not right for your own sake, it is not right----"

She held out her hands to him suddenly.

"It is not right for mine," she whispered.

Rochester stepped outside. Again the snow had ceased. In the forest he
could hear the whirl of machinery and the crashing of the falling
timber. He stood for a moment with cl