cart sent on this errand were to bring back another man to work with him
at felling the timber that was to be sold next spring. The only way
between his house and other houses lay across the lake and through a gap
in the hills, a way that was passable now, and passable in calm days
when winter had fully come, but impassable at the time of forming ice
and of falling and drifting snow. He hoped that the snow and ice would
hold off until his plan could be carried out, but he held his face to
the keen cold breeze and looked at the mottled surface of the lake with
irritable anxiety. It was not his way to confide his anxiety to any one;
he was bearing it alone when the girl, who had been sauntering aimlessly
about, came to him.

"If I don't go with the boat to-morrow," she said, "I'll walk across as
soon as the ice'll bear."

With that he turned upon her. "And if I was a worse man than I am I'd
let ye. It would be a comfort to me to be rid of ye. Where would ye go,
or what would ye do? Ye ought to be only too thankful to have a
comfortable home where ye're kept from harm. It's a cruel and bad world,
I tell ye; it's going to destruction as fast as it can, and ye'd go
with it."

The girl shook with passion. "I'd do nothing of the sort," she choked.

All the anger and dignity of her being were aroused, but it did not
follow that she had any power to give them adequate utterance. She
turned from him, and, as she stood, the attitude of her whole figure
spoke such incredulity, scorn, and anger, that the flow of hot-tempered
arguments with which he was still ready to seek to persuade her reason,
died on his lips. He lost all self-control in increasing ill-temper.