She smiled her thanks, for she understood his meaning.
"I will accompany you to the other side," he said. "If you get out we shall be able to talk better."
Obediently she let him help her out of the sleigh. For a moment he felt his soft burden cling to him, and light as she was she seemed to weigh him to the earth.
The sleigh pounded down to the ferry, and the pair followed it in silence.
"Leo!" she whispered entreatingly.
"Hush! and keep close to me!" he replied, forcing himself to speak severely, and he lifted the bar.
They stepped together on to the shaky companion ladder, jutting, narrow and slippery, into the water. They were hardly separated from its black depths by a foot. The rope, covered with icicles, shone like metal, and its frozen crust crunched against the wheels of the pulley.
"Leo!" she whispered again, and pressed her head against his sleeve.
"Now, what have you to say for yourself? You----" An ugly word, which was suppressed with difficulty, was on the tip of his tongue.
"Leo, I am desperate without you," she complained, in a subdued tone. "Why have you forsaken me?"