after the trail had taken both painter and painted. In his arms Andree stirred, looking up with those wide eyes that had lost their coquetry at last.
"It makes so dark," she whispered.
"It will soon be light for you, Andree." His words broke with a sudden jar of amaze and anger. That was Jennifer's creed; never his. He had no belief in anything beyond this life which he and Andree had sold so dearly.
"I cannot rest." She spoke in French, stirring fretfully. "I am so tired, and I cannot rest." She plucked at the folds of the deerskin. "That's it," she said, and for a moment her voice was stronger. "Take it away, Dick. It is too much the wild life. It is the deer that run and run and never be tired. It will not let me go. It is too live. Take it off, Dick."
Dick obeyed. He understood how the wild nature in her was having its last struggle. She smiled, feeling his arms closer round her.
"That better," she murmured. "I do love you, Dick."
"I know, Andree," he said, very low.
For a long while she lay silent. The cold was freezing into Dick, numbing his brain and tingling along his limbs. The virility in him rebelled against it, and he heard his voice speaking sharply.
"I won't die," it said. "By God! I won't die."
Then he saw that Andree was looking at him wistfully. He understood, and he stooped his head, and kissed her twice and again.
"Ah!" she said, with a long sigh of happiness. One shiver ran through her; her still face twitched once. And presently he rose and wrapped her again in the deerskin which would trouble her wild heart no more.
Beside the fire he stood still, blowing on his numbed fingers and holding them to the fitful blaze. And between the heavy boles of the firs he saw a shadow pass. The blood rushed to his temples, blinding his eyes. Was it help at last? The shadow passed again. It seemed vaguely familiar. What was that connection in his brain between the night of death on which he had first heard the name of Grange's Andree and this hour when he had seen her for the last time? It was a threat of some kind—and then
