the
pounding of his heart. Then Hugh plucked her away with a smothered oath.
He put her into a chair, crushed her hand in one of his, and turned upon
Bella.

"Go back into the kitchen," he ordered brutally; "trapping's not your
business. You mind your cooking."

"Be careful, Hugh!" Bella's whisper whistled like a falling lash, "I'll
not stand that tone from you. Be careful!"

"Oh," pleaded Sylvie, "why do you all quarrel so? Off here by yourselves
with nobody else to care, I'd think you would just love each other. I
love you all--yes, I do, even you, Bella, though I know you hate _me_.
Bella, _why_ do you hate me? Why does it make you so angry to have me
here? Does it make your work so much harder? I'll soon be better; I'm
learning to feel my way about. I'll be able to help you. I should think
you'd be glad to have a girl in the house--another woman. I'm sorry to
be a nuisance, really I am. I'd go if I could."

The lonely, deep silence, always waiting to fall upon them, shut down
with suddenness at the end of her sweet, tearful quaver of appeal. For
minutes no one spoke. Then Pete followed Bella out of the room. She
had not answered Sylvie's beseeching questions, but had only stood with
lowered head, her face working, her hands twisting her dress. She had
run out just as her face cramped as though for tears.

When the other two had gone, Hugh captured both of Sylvie's hands in
his. "You don't mean that, do you?" he asked brokenly. "You don't mean
you'd go away if you could, Sylvie!"

At Hugh's voice she started and the color rushed into her cheeks. "If I
make you quarrel, if I'm a nuisance, if Pete and Bella hate me so!"

"But I"--he said--"I love you." He drew her head--she was sitting in her
chair again--against his side. "No, don't smile at me like that; I don't
mean the sort of love you think. I love you terribly. Can't you feel how
I love you? Listen, close against my heart. Don't be frightened. There,
now you know how I love you!"

He rained kisses on her head resting droopingly against him.

"How can a man like you love _me_?" she asked with wistful uncertainty.

"A man like me?" Hugh groaned. "Ah, but I do--I do! You must stay with
me always. Sylvie, somehow we will be married--you--and I!"

"Now it frightens me," she whispered, "being blind. It does frighten
me now. I want so terribly to see your face, your eyes. Oh, you mustn't
marry a blind girl, a waif. You've been so noble, you've suffered so