“He’s away a good deal—I’m afraid there has been some friction now and then.” The girl’s manner suddenly changed. “But that’s beside the point. Aren’t you wasting time?”
“I am almost afraid to begin. You will find the story trying.”
She turned toward him, and the moonlight showed her face was reassuringly quiet.
“I expect that; but your fears are groundless. You needn’t hesitate on my account.”
Nasmyth knew that she was right; Millicent was not one to flinch from pain. With an effort, he began his story at the portage over the divide, and, possessed by vivid memories, he made her see the desolate region they had laboriously traversed. Because her imagination was powerful, she could picture the brother she had loved toiling with desperate purpose and failing strength through muskeg and morass. Then, when she quietly insisted, he described Gladwyne’s last camp. She saw that, too: the hollow beneath the dark rock, with the straggling cedars on the ridge above. Next he outlined the journey down the first few rapids, saying little about the caches, and at last, with considerable relief, he came to a stop. Millicent sat silent for several minutes, during which he did not look at her.
“Thank you,” she said at length. “I have tried often to imagine it, and failed; but it is quite clear now. Clarence would never give me more than the barest details—I think he hated to speak of it.”
“In a way, he was wise,” replied Nasmyth. He understood the man’s reluctance. “Now don’t you think it would be better if you tried to drive the thing out of your mind? It can’t be altered—there’s a danger in dwelling too much upon one’s grief.”
She looked up at him, though her eyes were dim with tears.
“It can’t be driven out. There were only the two of us; we had so much in common—there was such trust between us.”