"Would you kill me, for instance," asked Lawrence pleasantly, "if I stood between you and Claire?"
"That is scarcely answerable," nervously interposed Claire. "You see, you don't and the man who does—though it's all absurd, since we none of us here are the least in love—is my husband."
"I had almost forgotten him," said Lawrence, his voice lingering softly on the word "almost."
Philip laughed. "Why, yes, in the abstract, I should say that if anything would make me kill you, it would be your standing between me and the woman I loved. Of course, the case is fair, but scarcely probable enough to make any of us worry."
"True"—Lawrence joined him at the fire—"and by the way, while I think of it, I want a knife and a block of soft wood. I'm going to entertain myself these days."
Quickly Claire looked up.
"And you shall entertain me, Philip," she said gaily.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TIGHTENING NET.
Christmas was upon them. They gathered before the big fireplace in silent meditation, while outside the wind whipped sheeted snow against the walls and wailed dismally its endless journeying. They could not help but feel the something melancholy in the air. The little cabin, standing so far away from civilization and all the things they were accustomed to know seemed somehow to set them apart from the rest of the world and leave them stranded as it were, upon a barren stretch of thought.