re and covered it with a
second blanket. A few moments later Marette was tucked comfortably in
this chair, with her bare feet on the blanketed pile of wood. Kent
opened the stove door. Then he extinguished one of the smoking candles,
and after that, the other. The flaming birch illumined the little cabin
with a mellower light. It gave a subdued flush to the girl's face. Her
eyes seemed to Kent wonderfully soft and beautiful in that changed
light. And when he had finished, she reached out a hand, and for an
instant it touched his face and his wet hair so lightly that he sensed
the thrilling caress of it without feeling its weight.

"You are so good to me, Jeems," she said, and he thought there was a
little choking note in her throat.

He had seated himself on the floor, close to her chair, with his back
to the wall. "It is because I love you, Gray Goose," he replied
quietly, looking straight into the fire.

She was silent. She, too, was looking into the fire. Close over their
heads they heard the beating of the rain, like a thousand soft little
fists pounding the top of the cabin. Under them they could feel the
slow swinging of the scow as it responded to the twists and vagaries of
the current that was carrying them on. And Kent, unseen by the girl who
was looking away from him, raised his eyes. The birch light was glowing
in her hair; it trembled on her white throat; her long lashes were
caught in the shimmer of it. And, looking at her, Kent thought of
Kedsty lying back in his bungalow room, choked to death by a tress of
that glorious hair, so near to him now that, by leaning a little
forward, he might have touched it with his lips. The thought brought
him no horror. For even as he looked, one of her hands crept up to her
cheek--the small, soft hand that had touched his face and hair as
lightly as a bit of thistle-down--and he knew that two hands like that
could not have killed a man who was fighting for life when he died.

And Kent reached up, and took the hand, and held it close in his own,
as he said, "Little Gray Goose, please tell me now--what happened in
Kedsty's room?"

His voice thrilled with an immeasurable faith. He wanted her to know,
no matter what had happened, that this faith and his love for her could
not be shaken. He believed in her, and would always believe in her.

Already he was sure that he knew how Kedsty had died. The picture of
the tragedy had pieced itself together in his mind, bit by bit.