“Poor lass, poor lass,” exclaimed the young man; and, with an impulse that had in it no shadow of his sex, he put his arm round her. She clung to him, weeping violently. She would have done the same had he been a stock or a stone. He tossed the bill-hook up on to the bank, and stroked her hair clumsily with his large rough hand.
“Come away from here,” he said, when the rush of her grief had subsided, “this is a bad, lonesome place to be in, Mary. I’ll lift you down and we’ll go up on the bank. If there’s aught you want to say to me, say it up there.”
He helped her off the bough, and from the ledge up to the path. They stood facing each other.
“And now what can I do?” he asked. “How am I to leave you alone? I can’t bide by you all day to see that you come to no harm.”
She opened her lips to speak, but no sound came.
“Look,” he went on, “will you hearken to one thing I’ve got to say and not take it ill o’ me?”
She raised her eyes to his.
“If you was gone—drowned and gone—who would mind that little one you’ve brought into the world? Would you leave it alone, poor little babe, to them as might misuse it?”
“But he’s dead,” she said simply, and the agony in her face made him turn away his own. He met the placid gaze of the snow-men, whose foolish eyes seemed intent upon them both.