“Where have you been so long?” he asked. “Nancy would not tell me, so I know it was something unsafe.”
“I was just cutting some brush for the fire,” she returned cheerfully. “I took your ax and I—I didn’t bring it back with me.”
His observant blue eyes went over her from head to foot, and his face, drawn with pain though it was, wrinkled to a smile. He did not overlook, as Nancy had done, her damaged skirt and her bleeding knuckles. When he spoke it was so low that she had to stoop down to hear.
“Have I not enough to blame myself for, without having to see some terrible thing happen to you here on this cruel mountain? I am proud that you belong to me, you and that blessed, warm-hearted Nancy. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Forgive you for what?” she asked protestingly.
“For all that I have done.”
Nancy came in at this moment, carrying something very carefully.
“Christina told me that when people camp in the snow,” she said, “they warm their beds with hot stones, so I have raked some out of the fire, nice, flat ones, piping hot.”
She packed them in among the blankets with the deftness of a trained nurse, for Nancy was possessed, by nature, of a comforting touch.
“I am better now,” he declared, trying to smile reassuringly upon them both, although the color of his face, ghastly white under the sunburn, belied his words. “I want you to sit down and tell me—” his voice faltered, but in a moment he went on again—“and tell me about Anna. Is she getting well? How long has she been ill? Did she really come here to—to——”