from fire
to window, from door to wall, but not fast, rather with a sort of
stateliness. Sometimes he looked sidelong at Bella's expressionless,
listening face. At last he forced himself back to the chair and sat
there, mechanically polishing the barrel of his gun, but his tongue
still spoke the saga of illusion. It stopped when the storm dropped into
the bottomless silence of dawn. Then there was only the dripping from
their eaves. Hugh sat there, very white, his gun laid across his lap.
Bella, as white, lifted her face.

"They're coming," she whispered, and got stiffly to her feet.

Hugh moved back into his chair, turning sidewise and gathering himself
as though for a spring. His nervous hands clutched at his gun. Upon the
silence the door opened, and Pete and Sylvie came into the room. Wet and
storm-beaten and beautiful they were, with scarlet cheeks.

Pete came quickly over to Hugh's chair; he let fall his pack and gazed
resolutely down at his brother's face.

"Sylvie had a fancy to come with me to the trading-station," he said.
"She came out after me and didn't overtake me until just where the trail
comes out into the road. We hurried back, but the storm caught us. It
was pitch-black in the woods; we couldn't keep the trail. We had to
wait for daylight. I hope you weren't too anxious about her,
Hugh.--Bella"--he glanced over his shoulder--"could you make us some hot
coffee and help Sylvie into some dry clothes? We are properly drenched,
both of us."

This speaker of terse, authoritative sentences was not the boy that had
gone out that morning. That boy was gone forever.

Hugh stood up and looked slowly from Sylvie, who had stayed near the
door and held her head up like a queen, to Pete.

"Where were you," he asked gently--"where were you while it stormed?"

Pete moved toward the fire, holding out his hands. "Ugh!" he shivered,
"I'm numb with cold."

"Where were you," Hugh repeated, "during the storm?"

Pete lifted his eyes slowly. They were bluer than the blue heart of a
sapphire. "Under a pine-tree," he answered casually enough, and then,
just as Hugh would have smiled, the color creeping up into his lips,
Pete's young and honest blood poured over his forehead, engulfing him,
blazing the truth across his face. Bella saw it and clenched her hands.
Sylvie's cheeks, too, caught fire. Hugh turned from him, blinded by
terror, saw Sylvie's trembling mouth in her dyed countenance, and turned
back. He lifted