"You saved my life? Ah, yes! I remember now. You are a brave girl. And, by Jove!"—as his glance wandered to the slight, shivering figure—"you have no wrap. What is this?" trying to start to his feet, but falling back once more with an involuntary cry of pain. "I—I fear that I am going to faint!" he murmured, feebly. "Miss—Dane, will you please—look in my coat-pocket for a flask—of—brandy?"
She obeyed him in silence, and fortunately found a flask nearly filled with brandy. She forced him gently to a seat which she had prepared of moss and dry brushwood. Then, with deft fingers, she removed the drinking-cup attached to the flask, and poured it nearly full of the liquor. She held it to his lips, but he motioned it away.
"You must drink some first," he said, in a tone which she never once thought of disobeying. "Oh, yes! you must! It may help to save your life. No matter though you do not like it, you must drink it."
With a wry face the girl obeyed him, and drank some of the fiery liquid, after which the stranger followed her example. Then they crouched before the fire to await the next move in the little romance.
An hour passed, and then relief came. Two men in a boat, rowing swiftly down the river, saw Beatrix standing in the light of the brushwood fire. A few vigorous pulls and the boat was landed, and the story told. It did not take long to assist the stranger into the boat, and Beatrix was safely seated in the stern before it occurred to her that she had not inquired his destination.
"I was on my way to Doctor Frederick Lynne's," the young man explained. "My name is Keith Kenyon, and my home is in New Orleans."
Keith Kenyon! The name fell upon the girl's ears like a strain of half-forgotten music. Her great dark eyes met his with a startled glance of surprise.
"Why, you were going to my home!" she exclaimed. "I am Doctor Lynne's adopted daughter—Beatrix Dane."
As the words passed her lips their eyes met, and a strange, subtle thrill went through Beatrix Dane's heart at sight of the strange expression in his dark eyes.
But they had now reached the opposite shore, where a team and light wagon were speedily procured, and the kind-hearted men who were acting the part of good Samaritans to the two so strangely thrown together, drove them at once to Doctor Lynne's—the old, weather-beaten, unpainted house where Beatrix Dane had passed her childhood and youth, and where the strange romance of her young life was destined to begin.