moment to broil you a
partridge I got yesterday. But I'll open these sardines first."

He went to work with a large jack-knife, but she thanked him, briefly,
in a low voice, and refused to accept anything but the tea and a bit
of the biscuit. She wondered why he didn't also sit down to eat. It
bothered her to see him hovering over her like some sort of waiter. He
was probably staring at her, when her head was turned, and enjoying
his dastardly jest. When she thought of those letters she had received
and of all they contained of lies, of unimaginable falsehoods, the man
began again to repel her like some venomous reptile. She could have
shrieked out as he came near. What an actor he was! What control he
held over voice and face as he pretended to know nothing about her.
His effort had been evident, from the very first instant they had met,
to disclaim the slightest knowledge of her or of the reasons for her
coming! She felt utterly bewildered. He answered to that name of Hugo
Ennis and had admitted that this was Roaring River, as Stefan had also
told her. Moreover, the big Swede knew perfectly well that she was
coming and expected. In word, in action, in every move of his, this
man was lying, stupidly, coarsely, with features indifferent or
pretending concern. It was unbearable.

She turned and looked at him again, swiftly but haggardly. She would
never have conceived the possibility of a man dissembling so, in
letters first and lying again in every move and every tone of his
voice. How could he keep it so tranquil and unmoved? Yet when he came
near her again, insisting on filling her cup once more, she seemed for
an instant to forget the rough clothes, the mean little shack, the
strange conspiracy of which she was the victim and which had aroused
her passionate protests. Over the first mouthfuls of hot tea she had
nearly choked, but she had found the warm brew welcome and its odor
grateful and pleasant. It mingled in some way with the scent of the
balsam boughs with which the bunk was covered and over which the
blankets reposed. She had experienced something like this feeling in
the hospital, the first time she had been an inmate of it. It was as
if again she had been very ill and awakened in an unfamiliar and
bewildering place. The great weakness she experienced was something
like that which she had felt in the great ward, where the rows of beds
stretched before her and at either side. Some were screened, she
rememb