"I did not, sir."
Devarges looked as if he would read the inmost thoughts of the girl, and then, as if reassured, said—
"Take it from the fire, and let it cool in the snow."
The young girl raked away the embers of the dying fire, and disclosed what seemed to be a stone of the size of a hen's egg incandescent and glowing. With the aid of two half-burnt slicks she managed to extract it, and deposited it in a convenient snow-drift near the door, and then returned to the side of the old man.
"Grace!"
"Sir!"
"You are going away!"
Grace did not speak.
"Don't deny it. I overheard you. Perhaps it is the best that you can do. But whether it is or not you will do it—of course. Grace, what do you know of that man?"
Neither the contact of daily familiarity, the quality of suffering, nor the presence of approaching death, could subdue the woman's nature in Grace. She instantly raised her shield. From behind it she began to fence feebly with the dying man.