"I suppose it would be indiscreet to inquire why?"

"Well, we won't discuss it," said McVay with an agreeable smile. "Of course she could understand that such an inferior position as a watchman's had to be kept a profound secret, hence our remote mode of life, and the fact that I don't allow a butcher or baker to come near us. I tell her that if it were known that I had held such a poor position, it would interfere with my getting a better. So, if you should happen to find that you have to explain to her why I am detained here--"

"_If_ I should explain to her," said Geoffrey. "What do you suppose I am going to do?"

"Well, I suppose you will find it necessary," said McVay. "Indeed, as a matter of fact, I would much rather have you do it than do it myself.

Still, you might bear in mind to tell her as gently as possible. If she were your own sister--"

"Oh, go to the devil," said Geoffrey, and slammed the door.

III

Geoffrey was born with a love of adventure, and his dislike to his present expedition arose not from fear, but from a consciousness that if he did run into a den of thieves he would think himself such an a.s.s to have come. Indeed, there seemed a fair chance that he might think this even if nothing worse happened than that the hut proved empty, for he would have had a long walk for nothing better than to provide McVay with an opportunity to escape. He did not see exactly how McVay could get out, but he was aware that few people would think it wise to leave a burglar locked in a closet in an empty house with some hours of leisure at his disposal.

The first glimmering of dawn was visible as he stepped off the piazza; the wind was blowing fiercely and the snow still falling. He had not gone a hundred yards before he knew that the expedition was to be more difficult than he had imagined. To make headway against the wind was a constant struggle, and he seemed to slip back in the snow at every step.

Still the natural obstinacy of his nature was aroused, and as his attention was more and more engaged with the endeavor to make his way, he had less time to think of the probable futility of his proceeding.

Long before he sighted the hut, he was wet to the waist, not only because he had been in half a dozen drifts, but because the snow had penetrated every crevice of his clothing.

The hut was a forlorn little spot upon the landscape, a patch of grey on the stretch of forest and snow. A shutter blowing in the wind gave an impression of desertion, for how could any one, however wretched, sit idle under that recurrent bang?

Drawing his revolver, Geoffrey approached the door. He had no intention of giving a possible enemy an opportunity to prepare himself, and so did not knock, but, putting his shoulder against the door, shoved mightily.

The hinges broke from the rotten wood at once, and he stumbled in.

The pale light of the early winter morning showed a depressing interior, for the window was not the only opening. There was a great gap in the roof where, earlier in the night, the chimney had fallen, and now its bricks littered the floor, already well covered with snow. Some attempt must have been made, as McVay had boasted, of "fixing it up"; there were books in the shelves on the walls, and a black iron stove on which the snow now lay fearlessly. As Geoffrey took in the situation, something in a huge chair, which he had taken for a heap of rugs, stirred and moved, and finally rose, betraying itself to be a woman. Geoffrey had been prepared to find a den of thieves, or nothing at all, or even a girl, as McVay had said. He told himself he would be surprised at nothing, yet found himself astounded, overwhelmed at the sight of a beautiful face.

The girl must have been beautiful so to triumph over her surroundings, for all sorts of strange garments were huddled about her, and over all a silk coverlet originally tied like a shawl under her chin, had slipped sideways, and fell like a Hussar's jacket from one shoulder. Her hair stood like a dark halo about her little face, making it seem smaller and younger, almost too small for the magnificent eyes that lit it.

Geoffrey, tolerably well versed in feminine attractions, said to himself that he had never seen such blue eyes.

And suddenly while he looked at her and her desperate plight, pity became in him a sort of fury of protection, the awakening of the masculine instinct toward beauty in distress. It was a feeling that the other women he had admired--well-fed, well-clothed, well-cared-for young creatures--had always signally failed to arouse. He had seen it in other men, had seen their hearts wrung because an able-bodied girl must take a trolley car instead of her father's carriage, but he had thought himself hard, perhaps, unchivalrous; but now he knew better. Now he knew what it was to feel personally outraged at a woman's discomfort.

"Good G.o.d!" he cried, "what a night you have had. How wicked, how abominable, how criminal--"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GOOD G.o.d," HE CRIED "WHAT A NIGHT YOU HAVE HAD"]

"It has been a dreadful night," said the girl, "but it is n.o.body's fault."

"Of course it is somebody's fault," answered Geoffrey. "It must be. Do you mean to tell me no one is to blame when I have been sitting all night with my feet on the fender, and you--"

"Certainly," said she with an extraordinarily wide, sweet smile, "I could wish we might have changed places."

"I wish to Heaven we might," returned Geoffrey, and meant it. Never before had he yearned to bear the sufferings of another. He had often seen that it was advisable, suitable just that he should, but burningly to want to was a new experience.

"Thank you," said the girl, "but I'm afraid there is nothing to be done."

"Nothing to be done!" He dropped on his knees before the black monster of a stove, "Do you suppose I'm here to do nothing?"

"You are here, I think, for shelter from the storm."

It had not occurred to him before that she looked upon him as a chance wanderer.

"That shows your ignorance of the situation. I am here to rescue you. I left my fireside for no other reason. As I came along I said at every blast, 'that poor, poor girl.' I set out to bring you to safety. I begin 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 thanking Fate that this bounty had fallen to his lot.

She withdrew them. "You are too conscientious," she said. "That is not part of the duty of a rescue party."

"It is, it is," said Geoffrey violently. "It is the merest humanity."

"Humanity?"

"To me, of course, if you will pin me down."

"Oh, there is no reason for the rescued to be humane."

"They ought to be grateful."

"They are."

"_Gratefuller_ then. Is it nothing that I have taken all the trouble to be born and grow up and live just to come here for you?"

"Perhaps I could be gratefuller if there were any prospect of a fire."

"Oh, curse the fire," said Geoffrey rising from his knees. "Who minds about it?"

"I mind very much."

"Well, you mustn't. You must not mind about anything, because it sets up too strong a reaction in me. There's no telling what I might not do under the stress. Come away from this dreadful place. The fires will burn in my house, and that is where we are going."

"I can't do that," she said, looking very grave.