Alice Deringham shivered all through. "It is a little difficult," she said.
Okanagan spoke to his horses, and after what appeared an interminable time looked down again.
"There," he said, with a curious, almost silent laugh, and the girl saw a red blink amidst the pines across the valley. "That's Somasco."
Alice Deringham let her head drop back on her father's shoulder with a little sigh. "It seems a very long way," she said, "and I am very cold."
It was some time later when the wagon stopped with a jerk, and she roused herself as a glare of light shone about her. Voices came out of it, somebody held out a hand, and a man whom she did not recognize lifted her from the wagon. Then she walked unevenly into the brightness of a log-walled hall and grew faint, while a tingling pain ran through her with the change of temperature. A woman whom she did not know clumsily took her wrappings from her, and then led her into a room where Seaforth drew a chair up to a table beside the stove. Alice Deringham's head was throbbing, but she could see that he was white and haggard.
"How is he?" she said, and the tingling pain grew more pronounced as she waited the answer.
Seaforth's face was very grave. "I think it is touch and go with him—but if he wears the night out he may pull through. It was very good of you to come."
Alice Deringham made a little gesture of impatience. "But there is hope?" she said, and her voice was very low and strained.
Seaforth glanced round sharply as the woman, knocking over something, went out of the room.
"A little, I believe, if he could sleep," he said huskily. "The doctor is with him now—scarcely left him the last four days. We have nobody to help us. Mrs. Margery broke down. The woman you saw is incapable. Harry has been delirious—and asking for you—half the time."