noon when she reached home again, and Lawrence, a worried
look on his face, was standing in the door of the cabin.

"You beat me back," Claire said, as she approached, and her heart leaped
at the look of relief that came into his face.

"Claire, you ought to be punished," he said in gay, tender tones.

"What sentence would you pass, Mr. Judge?" she questioned.

He stepped out toward her.

"Perhaps your fate needs a good washing in cold snow," he laughed.

"Perhaps it does," she said, caressingly. "Do you think you could
administer it?"

"I know I could."

He stooped and took up a handful of snow.

She did the same and said gaily, "Two washed faces seem inevitable."

Lawrence laughed and caught her around the waist. Her blood tingled, and
her throat hurt as if she would choke. She began to struggle
desperately, frightened at her own emotion. He laughed, and held her
tighter with one arm while he tried to reach her face with the other
hand. She was pressed against him, and they swayed back and forth, while
Philip laughed from the doorway. Her heart was beating trip-hammer blows
against her breast, she gasped for breath, and her eyes closed. His hand
reached her face, and she ducked against his shoulder.

"Lawrence! Lawrence!" she sobbed. Her voice startled him. Its pleading,
yielding intensity sent his own blood racing. He let her go, and stepped
back quickly while his breath came short.

"Pardon me, Claire," he muttered, and turned away.

Claire saw Philip watching them, in his eyes a strange, new glitter. She
rushed past him to the cabin and into her little room.

It was a silent dinner they ate that day.

Claire was deeply, bitterly humiliated, and she kept seeing again and
again with exaggerated clearness that look in Philip's eyes when she had
staggered free from Lawrence's arms. It burned in her mind like an
unquenchable coal, and she revolted at it. She was utterly unable to
collect her thoughts. She fancied she could still feel the warm pressure
of Lawrence's body while she suffered untold agony of soul for having
been carried away by his touch. She reproached herself with a scorn that
seared for having ever allowed herself to engage in that silly scuffle.

She could scarcely bear to sit at the table with Philip, and she did not
once look in his direction. In her heart there was no anger against
Lawrence, only a dull, aching dread, tempered with a longing she did not
attempt to analyze.

Domin