to think I was born for no other reason."

She smiled rather wearily, "Your coming at all is so strange that I
could almost believe you."

"You may thoroughly believe me, more easily perhaps when I tell you I
did not particularly want to come. I started out at dawn very cross and
cold because I did not know what I was going to find...."

"But I thought you said you did know that you were going to rescue a
girl?"

"A girl, yes. But what's a mere girl? How many thousand girls have I
seen in my life? Is that a thought to turn a man's head? What I did not
know was that I was going to find _you_."

"The fire will never burn with the chimney strewn on the floor," she
said mildly.

"Well, I've said it, you see," he answered, "and you won't forget it,
even if you do change the subject." He turned his attention to the fire.
Where is the man, worthy of the name to whom the business of fire
building is not serious?

Presently seeing he needed help she dropped to her knees beside him and
tried to shove a piece of wood into place. In the process her numbed
fingers touched his, and he instantly dropped everything to catch her
hand in both of his.

"Your hands are as cold as ice," he said, holding them tightly, and