you ever saw. That's when I ran to collect my gun--it was a little
farther up the bank than my hides, worse luck!"

Even Bella had forgotten her bitterness in listening, and Pete's
parted lips were those of an excited child. Sylvie leaned forward
in her chair, her cheeks tingling, her hands locked. Hugh had thrown
himself into the action of his story; his face was slightly contorted
as though sighting along a gun-barrel, his arm raised, the
ungainliness of his deformity strongly accentuated. He was not looking
at Sylvie; true to his nature and his habit, he had forgotten every
one but that Hugh of adventure and of romance, the one companion of
his soul. None of them was watching Sylvie, and when she gave a sharp,
little cry, a queer start and then sat utterly still, Hugh
accepted it--they all accepted it--as a tribute to his story-telling
powers.

But Sylvie, leaning her elbows on her knees, raised trembling hands
to her eyes and hid them. She sat very still, very white, while the
story went on, vividly imagined, picturesquely told. When it was over,
and the mother bear, after a worthy struggle, defeated, Hugh looked
about for his applause. It came, grudgingly from Bella, eagerly from
Pete--and from Sylvie in a sudden extravagant clapping of hands, a
ripple of high, excited laughter, and a collapse in her chair. She
had fainted in a limp little heap.

She came to in an instant, but seemed bewildered and, unprotesting,
permitted herself to be carried to bed. She declared she felt quite
well again and wanted only to be alone. She repeated this moaningly.
"Oh, to be alone!"