The unfeigned misery in his face made her smile adorably, but she would not permit him to touch her.
“See to what you have brought me!” she said. “I’m utterly unable to live without you. And now what are you going to do with me?”
Her eyes were very tender. He caught her hand and kissed it, and laid it against his face.
“There is a way,” he said.
“A way?”
“Shall I lead? Would you follow?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, amused.
“There is a way,” he repeated. “That thread of a brook leads to it.”
He pointed off to the westward, where through the forest a stream, scarcely wider than the canoe, flowed deep and silent between its mounds of moss.
He picked up the paddle and touched the blade to the water; the canoe swung westward.