ine snow had drifted into the folds of her clothing
and was melting on her hair. She looked more wildly disordered than when
he had seen her before, for she had wrapped a blanket about her, and the
child was under it, covered so closely that Raven wondered how he could
breathe. He tried to take the blanket from her, but she held it
desperately. It seemed as if, in unreasoning apprehension, she dared not
let the child be seen. But he laid his hand on hers, saying, "Please!"
authoritatively, and she let him unclasp the tense fingers, remove the
blanket, and then take the child. Raven had had no experience with
babies, but this one he took, in the heat of his compassion, with no
doubt that he should know what to do with him. He felt the little feet
and hands and, finding them warm, drew forward an arm-chair for her,
and, when she sank into it, set the child in her lap.

"Put your feet to the fire," he said. "Your shoes are all snow. Better
take them off."

She shook her head. She stretched her feet almost into the blaze and the
steam rose from them. Raven went to the cupboard at the side of the
fireplace and took down a bottle of chartreuse. But she shook her head.

"I dassent," she said. "He'll smell it."

Raven came near breaking into an oath. Did the beast own her, that he
should be able, after this new outrage, to get her sweet breath?

"I ain't cold," she assured him, "not now. No, I won't drink any"--for
he was about to pour it for her--"I never took much stock in them
things. I've seen too much of 'em."

Then Raven remembered that Charlotte had told him all the boys
drank--her brothers--and he seemed to have turned another page in her
piteous life. He set back the bottle and, to give her time to recover
herself, resumed his task of straightening the room. At her voice, he
was at once beside her.

"Should you just as soon," she asked quietly, as if the question were of
no moment, "I'd stay up here all night?"

"Of course you're to stay all night." It seemed to him too beautiful a
thing to have happened, to know she was here in safety with the trees
and the snow. "I'll go down and get some milk and things for him"--he
was indicating the baby who, under the ecstasy of warmth, was beginning
to talk strange matters, standing on his mother's knee--"I'll tell
Charlotte I'm staying up here all night."

But now he saw, in surprise (for he had failed to guess how his words
would strike her) that she was terrified, p