She became suddenly still. Her hand clenched on a fold of her skirt, but she did not lift her face. Her head was uncovered and he stood regarding the blue and purple lights of that high, dark coil of her hair. "See here," he went on finally, "I can't let you be discouraged. You've done too much for me. Don't you know it? Of course you made a mistake; you should never have come to the mills. But it was my mistake, too, and I don't like to think what this life here would have meant without you. Why, you and little Si have stood for what I like best; you've made a home for me. Without you I should have lived like a miserable castaway."
She lifted her face with a supreme effort. Her eyes said, "Thank you," and her lips shaped an explanation he was not slow to grasp. "You were right, it's the solitude. I exaggerate—lately—I am annoyed by the—smallest things. Just now it was Mr. Stratton. He happened—to ask me to go—with him—on an excursion aboard the Phantom. As if—Philip—would not run in for me—any time—that I wished. But, Paul, if the mills close, what will you do?"
"I?" he answered and smiled, "why, there's a piece of land out on the upper Des Chutes that I've been anxious to secure for a long time. I'm going to homestead it and, incidentally, prospect the hills. You see this business depression is giving me an opportunity I've been waiting for."
"The upper Des Chutes," she repeated. "I see, you are going to take up a systematic search for the lost prospect, and make your headquarters on the ground."
"Yes," he said, "or pretty close to it. I can't tell you how I want to find myself in the thick of the timber again. You don't know how I hesitated between that homestead and this position at the mills. My inclinations, every fiber in me reached out to that section at the headwaters, but, of course, I needed a little more capital to start with; that is, to carry on the developments I had in view. I am afraid, though, it was Alice who turned the scales." He paused, smiling a little and shaking his head. "You see I hadn't learned, then, to take defeat, and I never could believe her refusal was final. I couldn't ask her to bury herself up there in the wilderness."
"You mean you asked Alice to be your wife, and she—refused. Oh, Paul, how could she?" She rose to her feet. Her voice was low and thrilling, and she looked at him again through springing tears. "How could she? To—to think we have always taken so much—your best—and in return have given you—worse than nothing."
She held out her hands once more, and this time he took them in his friendly grasp. "You forget," he said, with his smile of the eyes, "You forget all I've been saying. The debt is on my side. I never can do as much for you."
While he said this a workman came down the path. He was the sawyer at the mills. Her hands dropped and she stepped back to the seat she had left. The man looked at her and then at Forrest as he passed, turning his head slowly to prolong the stare.
"I didn't know the mill men ever came up here," she faltered.
"They don't, often." Forrest stood watching the curve where the man had disappeared. "A lighter grounded on Alki Point; he has been helping to float her. That's what took me up the trail." He began to walk in the direction the man had gone. Presently he looked back. "I must hurry on," he said. "Come with me, if you are ready; I would be glad to help you down."