There is the little upstairs balcony, I can bunk in that.
You know--the one over the door, with the little winding stair leading
up to it. I--I'm sorry."

This was one more thing Marjorie hadn't counted on. But after all what
did it matter? She expected to be so deadly tired from the work she
had promised to do that she would never know whether Francis was in the
house at all. And if there really were bears once in awhile it would
really be better not to be all alone with them.

"Very well," she said. She looked hungrily at the thick trees they
were speeding through. She supposed she would never have time to lie
out under a tree, or go hunting for flowers and new little wood-paths
again. She had read stories of lone, draggled women in logging-camps,
toiling so hard they hadn't even time to comb their hair, but always
wore it pulled back tight from their forehead. This wasn't a
logging-camp, but she supposed there was very little difference.

She was very quiet for awhile. Francis, turning finally, a little
uneasy, found that she was quietly crying. It happened that he had
never seen her cry before.

"Please, Marjorie!" he begged in a terrified voice. "Please stop! Is
there anything I can do?"

"You have done everything," she said in a little quiet voice that tried
not to break, but did, most movingly, on the last word.

She said nothing more after that. After awhile she got hold of
herself, dried her eyes, and began to watch the woods desperately
again, as if she would never see them any more. If she had but known
it, she was making Francis suffer as much as she was suffering herself.

"I'll bring the rest of your things over now," he said, when he had
carried her little bag in and put it on her bed. He went out and left
her alone, in the little wood-walled bedroom with its high, latticed
windows, and Indian blankets and birch-bark trimmings. She lay on the
bed apathetically awhile, then she began to notice things a little.
There was a kodak on her bureau. There were snowshoes, too small for a
man surely--if you could tell of a thing the size of snowshoes--hanging
on the wall. There was a fishing-rod case, with something hanging near
it that she imagined was a flybook. There was a little trowel, and a
graceful birch-bark basket, as if some one might want to go out and
bring home plants. She got up finally, her curiosity stronger than her
unhappiness, and investigated.

There was dust on ev