For a time I feared that she could be experiencing no atom of pleasure or comfort, but she frequently assured me that she was perfectly content, and, knowing that it would be impossible to mend matters for the present, she looked on the least dismal aspect of the situation and made the best of it, like the good, wise, girl she was, which made her lot easier to bear and my burden of anxiety lighter.
With a woman's tact she made the dismal burrow to appear brighter for her stay in it. There were few articles for her to manage with—brilliantly coloured blankets and a few skins of beasts we had killed was all. I think it was her sweet presence that, to my eyes, brightened matters more than anything, though often when I entered in a morning I saw some fresh evidence of her thoughtfulness and taste.
We passed our days in company, cooking and eating, reading and talking. Oh, how we talked! If some person could have peeped in at us when the slush-lamp was burning brightly, the fire was roaring up the chimney, and on the rough table an appetising meal was spread, they would have wondered. We were far better off, I fancy, than any others were that winter in the Yukon region. Certainly I was reconciled to my lot. Still I felt deeply for and pitied May.
MAY AND I IN THE DUG-OUT.
Sitting dreamily by the fire one day, talking of our past adventures and planning our future course, we got on to the subject of Meade. I had been narrating how I met him, and how I came to be where I was and what he had done. "Where is he now?" asked May. "Will he come up here again in spring?"
I said "No—he has gone for good and all; he'll never return to me!"
"What! and left all his gold behind? You told me he had taken none away with him."
I was nonplussed, confounded. I did not know what to answer. I hesitated.