The danger was over for that day; but the next morning there it was again, and with it the bitter cold.

'He must come home soon now,' said Silver, confidently, melting the frost on one of the little windows so that she could see out and watch for his coming. But he came not. As night fell the cold grew intense; deadly, clear, and still, with the stars shining brilliantly in the steel-blue of the sky. Silver wandered from window to window, wrapped in her fur mantle; a hundred times, a thousand times she had scanned the ice-fields and the snow, the lake and the shore. When the night closed down, she crept close to the old man who sat by the fire in silence, pretending to mend his nets, but furtively watching her every movement. 'Papa,' she whispered, 'where is he, where is he?' And her tears fell on his hands.

'Silver,' he said, bending over her tenderly, 'do I not love you? Am I not enough for you? Think, dear, how long we have lived here and how happy we have been. He was only a stranger. Come, let us forget him, and go back to the old days.'

'What! Has he gone, then? Has Jarvis gone?'

Springing to her feet she confronted him with clinched hands and dilated eyes. Of all the words she had heard but one; he had gone! The poor old man tried to draw her down again into the shelter of his arms, but she seemed turned to stone, her slender form was rigid. 'Where is he? Where is Jarvis? What have you done with him,—you, you!'

The quick unconscious accusation struck to his heart. 'Child,' he said in a broken voice, 'I tried to keep him. I would have given him my place in your love, in your life, but he would not. He has gone, he cares not for you; he is a hard, evil man.'

'He is not! But even if he were, I love him,' said the girl, defiantly.

Then she threw up her arms towards heaven (alas! it was no heaven to her, poor child) as if in appeal. 'Is there no one to help me?' she cried aloud.

'What can we do, dear?' said the old man, standing beside her and smoothing her hair gently. 'He would not stay,—I could not keep him!'

'I could have kept him.'