Tears splashed down from the big eyes. “I didn’t think you would leave me here alone. With you I don’t mind it, but— Oh, I should die if I stayed alone.”
“Only for twenty-four hours. Perhaps less. I shouldn’t think of it if it weren’t necessary.”
“Take me with you. I am strong. You don’t know how strong I am. I promise to keep up with you. Please!”
He shook his head. “I would take you with me if I could. You know that. But it’s a man’s fight. I shall have to stand up to it hour after hour till I reach Yesler’s ranch. I shall get through, but it would not be possible for you to make it.”
“And if you don’t get through?”
He refused to consider that contingency. “But I shall. You may look to see me back with help by this time to-morrow morning.”
“I’m not afraid with you. But if you go away Oh, I can’t stand it. You don’t know—you don’t know.” She buried her face in her hands.
He had to swallow down his sympathy before he went on. “Yes, I know. But you must be brave. You must think of every minute as being one nearer to the time of my return.”
“You will think me a dreadful coward, and I am. But I can’t help it. I AM afraid to stay alone. There’s nothing in the world but mountains of snow. They are horrible—like death—except when you are here.”
Her child eyes coaxed him to stay. The mad longing was in him to kiss the rosy little mouth with the queer alluring droop to its corners. It was a strange thing how, with that arched twist to her eyebrows and with that smile which came and went like sunshine in her eyes, she toppled his lifelong creed. The cardinal tenet of his faith had been a belief in strength. He had first been drawn to Virginia by reason of her pluck and her power. Yet this child’s very weakness was her fountain of strength. She cried out with pain, and he counted it an asset of virtue in her. She acknowledged herself a coward, and his heart went out to her because of it. The battle assignments of life were not for the soft curves and shy winsomeness of this dainty lamb.