she asked, with an
emphatic stamp of her foot on the floor.

"Yes, Miss. Mr. Selincourt, not knowing, ventured out on a muskeg,
and was being slowly sucked in, when she and her brother came along
the back creek in their boat. It was a touch-and-go business then,
for she had no planks or hurdles, though luckily she had ropes; but
by sending her little brother, who weighs next to nothing at all,
to slip a noose of rope under Mr. Selincourt's shoulders, she was
able to haul on the rope, and so drag him out by sheer force of
arm. She sent her love to you, and hopes he will soon be better,"
the man said, with a little flourish of his hands. In point of
fact Katherine had done nothing of the kind, but it sounded better
so, he thought, and gave a consolatory touch to the whole.

Mary turned abruptly away. Her father's misadventure was so much
worse than she had expected that the horror of it broke down her
self-control completely; the solid ground seemed to crumble under
her feet, and if she had not sunk into the nearest chair she must
have fallen. Sitting crouched in a corner, with her hands pressed
tightly against her face, striving for the mastery over those
unruly emotions of hers, she failed to hear sounds of another
arrival, and did not even look up when Jervis Ferrars entered,
without any ceremony of knocking.

A moment he stood in silence before her, not liking to disturb her,
nor even to be a witness of her breakdown, for he knew how proud
she was, and the humiliation it would be to her to be watched under
such conditions. Then, seeing the door of the bedroom half-open,
he passed silently and softly into the room, closing the door
behind him, and Mary was alone again. It might have been ten
minutes later before he reappeared, and then the anxious look had
left his face; he still looked concerned, but that was chiefly on
Mary's account.

"Miss Selincourt, I am fearfully disappointed in you," he announced
gravely, and Mary's head came up with a jerk.

"I--I did not know that you had come," she faltered.

"All the more reason why you should have been brave and courageous,
until there was someone on whom to shift the responsibility," he
said quietly.

Mary reddened, and her tears disappeared as if by magic. "Is it
possible that you do not know the terrible danger my father has
been in?" she asked frigidly.

"Yes, I know. But in a wild country like this one must always be
expected to face a certain am