rejoicing, while the great drops lashed his upturned face, until Edgar
laughingly pushed him toward the house.

"As I'm wet through, I think I'll go to bed. At last, you can rest
content."

George, following his example, lay down with a deep sense of
thankfulness. His cares had gone, the flood that roared against the
board walls had banished them. Now that relief had come, he felt
strangely weary, and in a few minutes he was sound asleep. He did not
hear the thunder, which broke out again, nor feel the house shake in
the rush of icy wind that suddenly followed; the ominous rattle on roof
and walls, different from and sharper than the lashing of the rain,
began and died away unnoticed by him. He was wrapped in the deep,
healing slumber that follows the slackening of severe mental and bodily
strain; he knew nothing of the banks of ragged ice-lumps that lay
melting to lee of the building.

It was very cold the next morning, though the sun was rising above the
edge of the scourged plain, when Edgar, partly dressed and wearing wet
boots and leggings, came into the room and looked down at George
compassionately.

The brown face struck him as looking worn; George had flung off part of
the coverings, and there was something that suggested limp relaxation
in his attitude; but Edgar knew that his comrade must bear his load
again.

"George," he said, touching him, "you had better get up."