nge
clouds fly northward, eighty miles an hour. After supper, Helen sat busy
over the fire, where some gum, collected by Hazel, resembling
India-rubber, was boiling; she was preparing to cover a pair of poor
Welch's shoes, inside and out, with a coat of this material, which Hazel
believed to be water-proof. She sat in such a position that he could
watch her. It was a happy evening. She seemed content. She had got over
her fear of him; they were good comrades if they were nothing more. It
was happiness to him to be by her side even on those terms. He thought of
it all as he looked at her. How distant she had seemed once to him; what
an unapproachable goddess. Yet there she was by his side in a hut he had
made for her.

He could not help sipping the soft intoxicating draught her mere presence
offered him. But by and by he felt his heart was dissolving within him,
and he was trifling with danger. He must not look on her too long, seated
by the fire like a wife. The much-enduring man rose, and turned his back
upon the sight he loved so dearly. He went out at the open door intending
to close it and bid her good-night. But he did not do so, just then; for
his attention as an observer of nature was arrested by the unusual
conduct of certain animals. Gannets and other sea-birds were running
about the opposite wood and craning their necks in a strange way. He had
never seen one enter that wood before.

Seals and sea-lions were surrounding the slope, and crawling about, and
now and then plunging into the river, which they crossed with infinite
difficulty, for it was running very high and strong. The trees also
sighed louder than ever. Hazel turned back to tell Miss Rolleston
something extraordinary was going on. She sat in sight from the river,
and, as he came toward the hut, he saw her sitting by the fire reading.

He stopped short. Her work lay at her feet. She had taken out a letter,
and she was reading it by the fire.

As she read it her face was a puzzle. But Hazel saw the act alone; and a
dart of ice seemed to go through and through him.

This, then, was her true source of consolation. He thought it was so
before. He had even reason to think so. But, never seeing any palpable
proofs, he had almost been happy. He turned sick with jealous misery, and
stood there rooted and frozen.

Then came a fierce impulse to shut the sight out that caused this pain.

He almost flung her portoullis to, and made his hands bleed. But a