The Chalice Of Courage Part 20

"A week alone in these mountains and I should be mad," she said decisively. "It isn't to be thought of."

"It must be thought of," urged the man. "You don't understand. It is either that or spend the winter here--with me."

The woman looked at him steadily.

"And what have I to fear from you?" she asked.

"Nothing, nothing," protested the other, "but the world?"

"The world," said the woman reflectively. "I don't mean to say that it means nothing to me, but it has cause enough for what it would fain say now." She came to her decision swiftly. "There is no help for it," she continued; "we are marooned together." She smiled faintly as she used the old word of tropic island and southern sea. "You have shown me that you are a man and a gentleman, in G.o.d and you I put my trust. When my foot gets well, if you can teach me to walk on snow shoes and it is possible to get through the pa.s.ses, we will try to go back; if not, we must wait."

"The decision is yours," said the man, "yet I feel that I ought to point out to you how--"

"I see all that you see," she interrupted. "I know what is in your mind, it is entirely clear to me, we can do nothing else."

"So be it. You need have no apprehension as to your material comfort; I have lived in these mountains for a long time, I am prepared for any emergency, I pa.s.s my time in the summer getting ready for the winter.

There is a cave, or recess rather, behind the house which, as you see, is built against the rock wall, and it is filled with wood enough to keep us warm for two or three winters; I have an ample supply of provisions and clothing for my own needs, but you will need something warmer than that you wear," he continued.

"Have you needle and thread and cloth?" she asked.

"Everything," was the prompt answer.

"Then I shall not suffer."

"Are you that wonder of wonders," asked the man, smiling slightly, "an educated woman who knows how to sew?"

"It is a tradition of Philadelphia," answered the girl, "that her daughters should be expert needlewomen."

"Oh, you are from Philadelphia."

"Yes, and you?"

She threw the question at him so deftly and so quickly that she caught him unaware and off his guard a second time within the hour.

"Baltimore," he answered before he thought and then bit his lip.

He had determined to vouchsafe her no information regarding himself and here she had surprised him into an admission in the first blush of their acquaintance, and she knew that she had triumphed for she smiled in recognition of it.

She tried another tack.

"Mr. Newbold," she began at a venture, and as it was five years since he had heard that name, his surprise at her knowledge, which after all was very simple, betrayed him a third time. "We are like stories I have read, people who have been cast away on desert islands and--"

"Yes," said the man, "but no castaways that I have ever read of have been so bountifully provided with everything necessary to the comfort of life as we are. I told you I lacked nothing for your material welfare, and even your mind need not stagnate."

"I have looked at your books already," said the woman, answering his glance.

This was where she had found his name he realized.

"You will have this room for your own use and I will take the other for mine," he continued.

"I am loath to dispossess you."

"I shall be quite comfortable there, and this shall be your room exclusively except when you bid me enter, as when I bring you your meals; otherwise I shall hold it inviolate."

"But," said the woman, "there must be an equal division of labor, I must do my share."

"There isn't much to do in the winter, except to take care of the burros, keep up the fire and prepare what we have to eat."

"I am afraid I should be unequal to outdoor work, but in the rest I must do my part."

He recognized at once that idleness would be irksome.

"So you shall," he a.s.sented heartily, "when your foot is well enough to make you an efficient member of our little society."

"Thank you, and now--"

"Is there anything else before I get supper?"

"You think there is no hope of their searching for me here?"

The man shook his head.

"If James Armstrong had been in the party," she said reflectively, "I am sure he would never have given up."

"And who is James Armstrong, may I ask?" burst forth the other bluntly.

"Why he--I--he is a friend of my uncle's and an--acquaintance of my own."

"Oh," said the man shortly and gloomily, as he turned away.

Enid Maitland had been very brave in his presence, but when he went out she put her head down on her arms on the table and cried softly to herself. Was ever a woman in such a predicament, thrown into the arms of a man who had established every conceivable claim upon her grat.i.tude, forced to live with him shut up in a two-room log cabin upon a lonely mountain range, surrounded by lofty and inaccessible peaks, pierced by terrific gorges soon to be impa.s.sable from the snows? She had read many stories of castaways from Charles Reade's famous "Foul Play" down to more modern instances, but in those cases there had always been an island comparatively large over which to range, with privacy, seclusion, opportunity for withdrawal; bright heavens, balmy breezes, idyllic conditions. Here were two uplifted from the earth upon a sky-piercing mountain; they would have had more range of action and more liberty of motion if they had been upon a derelict in the ocean.

And she realized at the same time that in all those stories the two castaways always loved each other. Would it be so with them? Was it so!

And again the hot flame within outvied the fire on the hearth as the blood rushed to the smooth surface of her cheek again.

What would her father say if he could know her position, what would the world say, and above all what would Armstrong say? It cannot be denied that her thoughts were terribly and overwhelmingly dismayed, and yet that despair was not without a certain relief. No man had ever so interested her as this one. What was the mystery of his life, why was he there, what had he meant when he had blessed the idle impulse that had sent her into his arms?

Her heart throbbed again. She lifted her face from her hands and dried her tears, a warm glow stole over her and once again not altogether from the fire. Who and what was this man? Who was that woman whose picture he had taken from her? Well, she would have time to find out. And meantime the world outside could think and do what it pleased. She sat staring into the firelight, seeing pictures there, dreaming dreams. She was as lovely as an angel to the man when he came back into the room.

BOOK IV

OH YE ICE AND SNOW, PRAISE YE THE LORD