the shed. Or I will roll myself in my blanket, and sleep outside
your door. Yes, I will do that."

Then the mother turned on him and spoke in her deep tones: "Go to your
bed, 'Arry King, and sleep well. You have need. We asked of the good
God your safety, and our fear is gone. Good night."

"Good-night."

CHAPTER XXI

THE VIOLIN

While Amalia lay recovering from the sprained ankle, which proved to
be a serious hurt, Madam Manovska continued to improve. She took up
the duties which had before occupied Amalia only, and seemed to grow
more cheerful. Still she remained convinced that Larry Kildene would
return with her husband, and her daughter's anxiety as to what might
be the outcome, when the big man should arrive alone, deepened.

Harry King guardedly and tenderly watched over the two women. Every
day he carried Amalia out in the sun to a sheltered place, where she
might sit and work at the fascinating lace with which her fingers
seemed to be only playing, yet which developed into webs of most
intricate design, even while her eyes were not fixed upon it, but were
glancing about at whatever interested her, or up in his face, as she
talked to him impulsively in her fluent, inverted English.

Amalia was not guarded; she was lavish with her interest in all he
said, and in her quick, responsive, and poetic play of fancy--ardent
and glowing--glad to give out from her soul its best to this man who
had befriended her father in their utmost need and who had saved her
own and her mother's life. She knew always when a cloud gathered over
his spirit, and made it her duty to dispel such mists of some
possible sad memory by turning his thoughts to whatever of beauty she
found around them, or in the inspiration of her own rich nature.

To avoid disquieting her by the studied guardedness of his manner,
Harry employed himself as much of the time as possible away from the
cabin, often in providing game for the winter. Larry Kildene had
instructed him how to cure and dry the meat and to store it and also
how to care for the skins, but because of the effect of that sight of
the bloody sheep's pelt on Amalia, he never showed her a poor little
dead creature, or the skin of one. He brought her mother whatever they
required of food, carefully prepared, and that was all.

He constructed a chair for her and threw over it furs from Larry
Kildene's store, making it soft and comfortable thereby. He made also
a footstool for the h