fraid of the bears--ah!" He drew her head savagely against his
breast, folded his arms about it, stroked the hair. "Sylvie! Is it all
right? Can it be--the same?"

"Yes, yes, why not?"

"Were you frightened?"

"Not after the first. After they had described you, I knew that they
were looking for the wrong man, and then I felt all right. I didn't
know--poor Hugh!--how cold and cramped you were. What a shame that you
took a false alarm and hid yourself! I don't believe there would have
been a bit of danger if you'd stayed out. They'd never even heard of
you, I suppose."

Her talk, so gay, so strangely at cross-purposes with reality, was like
a vivifying wine to him. The color came back into his face; a wild sort
of relief lighted his eyes.

"Then it didn't occur to you, Sylvie, that that brute might have been
me--that the men might, after all, have been describing me--eh?" he
asked, risking all his hope on one throw.

She laughed, and, lifting herself a little in his arms, touched her soft
mouth to his. "But, Hugh, you told me your story, don't you remember?
And it is gloriously, mercifully different from Rutherford's."

He put his chin on his fist and stared over her head into the fire.
She felt the slackening of his embrace and searched his arms with
questioning fingers. "Why are you cross, Hugh? Did I say anything to
hurt you? Let's forget Ham Rutherford. I wonder where he is, poor,
horrible wretch!"

"Dead--dead--dead," Hugh muttered. "Dead and buried--or he ought to be.
O God!" he groaned, and crushed her close against him; "I can't ask you
to love me, Sylvie--to marry me. Now you know what it is like to love a
man who must be afraid of other men. What right have I to ask any woman
to share my life?"

"But, Hugh--if I love you?"

"And you do love me?" he asked.

"Yes."

He laughed out at that, stood up, drawing her to stand beside him.
"Bella--Pete," he called, "do you hear--you two?" He beckoned them
close, laid a hand on them, drew first one, then the other toward
Sylvie. "She loves me. She sees me as I am!" Suddenly he put his
grizzled head on Sylvie's shoulder and wept. She felt her way back to
the chair, sat down, and drew him to kneel with his arms about her, her
head bent over him, her small hands caressing him. She looked at Pete
for help, for explanations, but she could not see his pale, tormented
face.

After a while Hugh was calm and sat at her feet, smoking. But he was
unnaturally silent