Lenore, staring wildly at him, caught her breath in a sob. “You don’t mean——”
Doomsdorf did not look at her. He still smiled down at Ned. “You’ve never felt a knout, have you, on the naked back?” he asked sweetly. “I found out what they were like in Siberia, and with the hope of showing some one else, I took one out—in my boot. It’s half-killed many a man—but I only know one man that it’s completely killed. He was a guard—and I found out just how many blows it takes. You can stop a hundred—fifty—perhaps only ten before that number, and life still lingers.” The man yawned again. “But your request is granted—so far as Lenore is concerned. You can leave her here for me to entertain. Bess has spirit enough to talk—she has undoubtedly spirit enough to work.”
Ned, deeply appalled and unspeakably revolted, looked to Lenore for directions. Her glorious head was on her arms, and she shook it in utter misery. “I can’t go out there now,” she said. “I’ll just die if I do—I’m so cold still, so weakened. I wish I had died out there in the storm.”
Ned turned once more to Doomsdorf. “She’s telling the truth—I think she simply can’t stand to go,” he urged gravely. “But though she’s absolutely in your power, there are some things even a beast can’t do. You just the same as gave me your word——”
“There are things a beast can’t do, but I’m not a beast. There’s nothing I can’t do that I want to do. I make no promises—just the same, for this time, I don’t think you need be afraid. I don’t take everything that comes along in the way of a woman. I want a woman of thews!”
Bess dared not look at him, but she felt the insult of his searching gaze. She buttoned her coat tight, then stood waiting. An instant later Doomsdorf was holding the door open for her as she went to her toil.
XVII
There were a number of axes in the little work-room that comprised one end of the long cabin, and Doomsdorf flung three of them over his shoulder. “Right up through here,” he urged, pointing to the little hillside behind the cabin. “Of course I can’t let you cut fuel from these trees so close to the house. You, as city people, surely know something about house beautifying. You’ll have to carry the wood a little farther—but you won’t mind, when you know it’s for the sake of beauty.”
The snow was noticeably deeper in the two hours since they had come. It clung to Ned’s trouser legs almost to the knees, soaking through his thin walking shoes; and both he and Bess found it some degree of labor just to push through it. Doomsdorf halted them before one of the half-grown spruce.
“Here’s a good one,” he commented. “Just beyond is another. You can each take one—cut them down with your axes and then hack them into two-foot lengths for the stove. Better split each length into three pieces—the larger ones, anyway. If you have time, you can carry it down to the cabin.”