“But suppose we do not? What then?”
“Then we shall have to take refuge in the cabin.”
She said no more, and Babette asked no more questions. In half an hour they reached the wooded spur round which the river turned, and as they reached the further side, both came to a standstill and looked at the frozen waste.
For two or three miles the course of the river was visible between low, wooded banks. Snow was everywhere, and nowhere was the white surface broken by any moving figure. It was a land of death—death white and cold. Babette shivered as she looked on it.
“They are not here, Joy,” she whispered. “Neither Jim nor the dogs.”
“No,” answered Joy stonily.
“We shall have to go back to the cabin to—to—your husband.”
“Yes, there is no other way!” A sob broke from her, then she bit her lip, and added, “It is a strange irony that now my safety should depend on him.”
“Dare you trust him—Joy?”