CHAPTER IX


They came down the hill rapidly and carelessly. Hugh, stung by pain
and anger, threw himself over the rocks, and Sylvie was too proud
to show her timidity or to ask for help. She crept and climbed up
and down, saving herself with groping hand, letting one foot test
the distances before she put the other down. At last the rattle of
his progress sounded so far below that she quavered: "Aren't you
going to wait for me, Hugh?"

He stopped short, and for a moment watched her silently; then, smitten
by the pathos of her progress--a little child, she seemed, against
the mountain toppling so close behind her--he came swinging up to
her and gave her his hand.

"You _need_ me, anyway, don't you?" he asked with a tender sort of
roughness.

She couldn't answer because she didn't want him to know that he had
made her cry. She kept her face turned from him and hurried along
at his side.

"Why do you go so fearfully fast?" she was forced at last to protest.

"Because I want to get down from this accursed mountain. I want to
get down into the woods again where I was happy."

"Hugh"--she pulled at his arm--"you are only a child after all."