As for the sergeant, he had not slept for three days, and was too utterly tired out to be of any assistance. He had done what he could, and had now to await developments. The fire was good, and he had dropped, at the rancher's request, into a comfortable high-backed chair in a corner, where he fell asleep.
CHAPTER III
THE STORM BREAKS
Midnight, and the rancher had left the house to assist Rory and Jacques with the sleighs, which had to be packed with certain necessaries such as tea, coffee, sugar, bread and flour, frozen meat, pemmican, culinary articles, snow-shoes, and ammunition.
Dorothy, having made all the preparations she could, had re-entered the kitchen. The first thing that drew her attention was the sleeping figure of the sergeant in the chair. She was filled with self-reproach. Why had she forgotten all about this wounded, tired-out man? Why did she always seem to be holding him at arm's-length when there was, surely, no earthly reason why she should do so? His manner had always been perfectly courteous to her, and even deferential. He had done her father many acts of kindness, without as much as referring to them, and still, with a spice of perversity, she had always shrunk from appearing to notice him. She shrewdly suspected that his present life was not the sort of one he had been accustomed to, that, in fact, he belonged by birth and upbringing to a state of things very different from hers. He looked wretchedly uncomfortable and, doubtless, as his limbs seemed cramped, they were cold. She would find a rug to throw over him.
She picked up one, and, with a strange shyness that she had never experienced before, placed it carefully over him. If he awoke she would die with terror—now that he was asleep and did not know that she was looking after his comfort, she experienced a strange, undefinable pleasure in so doing. It was quite a new feeling—something that filled her with a vague wonder.
And then he suddenly opened his eyes, and looked at her for a few moments without stirring.
"Thank you," he said simply, and closed his eyes again.
She could have cried with vexation. If he had been profuse in his thanks she would have had an opportunity of cutting him short with some commonplace comment.
"Hadn't you better lie on the couch, Mr. Pasmore?" she said. "You don't look as if you fitted that chair, and it makes you snore so."