"Don't, then--only, how did you live through the night, my dear?"

"I don't know--except that I never stayed still. I got out from the
trees because I was afraid of bears, and I lost my hat. The sun was
like fire shining up from underneath and down from up above. My eyes
began to hurt almost at once, and by the time night came, it was
agony. The darkness didn't seem to help me any either; the glare still
seemed to come in under my lids. I couldn't sleep for the pain. I
knew I'd freeze if I stood still, so I kept moving all night,
trampling round in circles, I suppose. Next morning the terrible glare
began again. Then everything went red. I was nearly crazy when you
found me, Mr. Garth."

"Please call me Hugh," he murmured, taking her hand in his. "I feel
in a way that you belong to me now--I saved you from dying alone there
in the cold and brought you back to my home. I've got jettison rights,
Sylvie." She let him hold her hand, and flushed.

"You'll never know what it felt like to hear your voice call to me,
to feel you pulling me up. I'd only just dropped a few minutes before,
but I'd never have struggled up. It would have been the end." She
trembled in the memory, and he patted her hand. "I don't know why
a man like you lives off here in this wild place, but thank God, you
do live here! Though," she added with wistfulness, twisting her soft
mouth, "though I can't ever quite see why God should care much for
a Sylvie Doone." She touched the lids of her closed eyes. "I wonder
why it doesn't worry me more not to be able to see. Now that the
pain's gone, I don't seem to care much."

"Thank God. Perhaps, though," he added half-grudgingly, "in a few