"Perhaps," said Bart, off his guard, "perhaps you may be willing to forget the past!"
"The past—forget the past?"
"Pardon me, it was unfortunate! Let us go."
"Barton!"
"Not a word now," said Bart, gayly. "I am the doctor, you are terribly shaken up, and not yourself. I shall not let you say a word of thanks. Why, we are not out of the woods yet!"—this last laughingly. "When you are all your old self, and in your pleasant home, everything of this night and morning will come to you."
"What do you mean, Mr. Ridgeley?" a little coolly.
"Nothing," in a sad, low voice. They had gained the road. "See," said he, "here is somebody's road, from some place to somewhere; we will follow it up to the some place. There! I hear an axe. I hope he is cutting wood; and there—you can see the smoke of his cabin.
'I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled.'
Oh, I hope he will have a rousing fire."
Julia walked rapidly and silently by his side, hardly hearing his last words; she was thinking why he would not permit her to thank him—and that it would all be recalled in her home—finally, his meaning came to her. He would seek and save her from death, and even from the memory of an unconsidered word, which might possibly be misconstrued; and she clung more closely to the arm which had borne her over the flood.