She turned and looked at him again, swiftly but haggardly. She would never have conceived the possibility of a man dissembling so, in letters first and lying again in every move and every tone of his voice. How could he keep it so tranquil and unmoved? Yet when he came near her again, insisting on 117 filling her cup once more, she seemed for an instant to forget the rough clothes, the mean little shack, the strange conspiracy of which she was the victim and which had aroused her passionate protests. Over the first mouthfuls of hot tea she had nearly choked, but she had found the warm brew welcome and its odor grateful and pleasant. It mingled in some way with the scent of the balsam boughs with which the bunk was covered and over which the blankets reposed. She had experienced something like this feeling in the hospital, the first time she had been an inmate of it. It was as if again she had been very ill and awakened in an unfamiliar and bewildering place. The great weakness she experienced was something like that which she had felt in the great ward, where the rows of beds stretched before her and at either side. Some were screened, she remembered, and held the poor creatures for whom there was no longer any hope. It was as if now a turn of her head could have revealed a white-capped nurse moving silently, deftly bringing comfort. Her hands had become quite warm again; she passed one of them over her brow as if this motion might have dispelled some strange vision.
The big dog, Maigan, came to her and laid 118 his sharp head and pointed cold muzzle on her lap, and she stroked it, mechanically. This, at any rate, was something genuine and friendly that had come to her. Again and again she passed her hand over the rough neck and head. At this, however, something within her broke again and her head fell once more on her arms as she sobbed,––sobbed as if her heart would break.
“I––I’m afraid you must have gone through a good deal of––of unhappiness,” faltered the man, anxiously. “It––it’s really too bad and I’d give anything if I could....”
But the girl lifted up her hand, as if to check his words. What right had a man who was guilty of such conduct to begin proffering a repentance that was unavailing, nay, contemptible? Did he think that a few halting words could atone for his cruelty, could dispel the evil he had wrought?
At this he kept silent again, during long minutes, appalled as men always are at the first sight of a woman’s tears. He felt utterly helpless to console or advise, and was becoming more and more bewildered at this interruption of his lonely and quiet life. Since she didn’t want him to speak he would hold his tongue. If she hadn’t looked so dreadfully unhappy he would have deemed her an infernal 119 nuisance and hurried her departure. But in this case how could a fellow be brutal to a poor thing that wailed like a child, that seemed weaker than one and more in need of gentle care?
Soon she rose from the table, determinedly, with some of her energy renewed by the food and hot drink.
“If you please, let us go now,” she told him, firmly.
“I’m entirely at your service,” he answered. “I think you had better let me lend you a cap. That thing you have on your head can hardly keep your ears from freezing. I have a new one that’s never been worn. Wait a moment.”
His search was soon rewarded. She had kept on but her inefficient little New York hat with its faded buds and wrinkled leaves and now tried to remove it. Her hands trembled, however, and the strain of travel had been hard. All at once, as she pulled away, her coiled hair escaped all restraint of pins and fell down upon her shoulders, in a great waving chestnut mass. At this Hugo opened the door and ran out, returning a couple of minutes later with the bag that had been left on the trunk.
“I––I expect you need some of your things,” he ventured.