pile over the end of his tongue,
questions that had little or nothing to do with Kedsty. He saw nothing
now but Marette.

She had begun to take down her hair. It fell about her in wet, shining
masses. Kent had never seen anything like it. It clung to her face, her
neck, her shoulders and arms, and shrouded her slender body to her
hips, lovely in its confusion. Little drops of water glistened in it
like diamonds in the lamp glow, trickling down and dropping to the
floor. It was like a glowing coat of velvety sable beaten by storm.
Marette ran her arms up through it, shaking it out in clouds, and a
mist of rain leaped out from it, some of it striking Kent in the face.
He forgot Fingers. He forgot Kedsty. His brain flamed only with the
electrifying nearness of her. It was the thought of her that had
inspired the greatest hope in him. It was his dreams of her, somewhere
on the Big River, that had given him his great courage to believe in
the ultimate of things. And now time and space had taken a leap
backward. She was not four or five hundred miles north. There was no
long quest ahead of him. She was here, within a few feet of him,
tossing the wet from that glorious hair he had yearned to touch,
brushing it out now, with her back toward him, in front of her mirror.

And as he sat there, uttering no word, looking at her, the demands of
the immense responsibility that had fallen upon him and of the great
fight that lay ahead pounded within him with naked fists. Fingers had
planned. She had executed. It was up to him to finish.

He saw her, not as a creature to win, but as a priceless possession.
Her fight had now become his fight. The rain was beating against the
window near him. Out there was blackness, the river, the big world. His
blood leaped with the old fighting fire. They were going tonight; they
must be going tonight! Why should they wait? Why should they waste time
under Kedsty's roof when freedom lay out there for the taking? He
watched the swift movements of her hand, listened to the silken rustle
of the brush as it smoothed out her long hair. Bewilderment, reason,
desire for action fought inside him.

Suddenly she faced him again. "It has just this moment occurred to me,"
she said, "that you haven't said 'Thank you.'"

So suddenly that he startled her he was at her side. He did not
hesitate this time, as he had hesitated in his room at Cardigan's
place. He caught her two hands in his, and with them he felt th