“Mr. Snaring said, ‘Look out for the bears!’ and I laughed and ran up what looked like a snow-buried trail. There was a hard crust. The woods were all glittering and so beautiful. I ran into them, laughing. I was so glad to get away by myself from those people into the woods where it was so silent and sort of solemn--like being in a church again. I can’t think how I got so lost. I meant to come round back to the road, but before I knew it, I didn’t know which way the road was. The pines were so dense, so all alike, they looked almost as if they kept sort of shifting about me. I tried to follow back on my footprints, but in some places snow had shaken down from the branches. And there were so many--so dreadfully many other tracks--of animals--” She put her hands over her face and shrank down in her chair. “Forget about them, Sylvie,” Hugh admonished gently. “Even if there had been bears about, they wouldn’t likely have bothered you any.” “I can’t bring myself to tell you about that time--I can’t!” “Don’t, then--only, how did you live through the night, my dear?” “I don’t know--except that I never stayed still. I got out from the trees because I was afraid of bears, and I lost my hat. The sun was like fire shining up from underneath and down from up above. My eyes began to hurt almost at once, and by the time night came, it was agony. The darkness didn’t seem to help me any either; the glare still seemed to come in under my lids. I couldn’t sleep for the pain. I knew I’d freeze if I stood still, so I kept moving all night, trampling round in circles, I suppose. Next morning the terrible glare began again. Then everything went red. I was nearly crazy when you found me, Mr. Garth.” “Please call me Hugh,” he murmured, taking her hand in his. “I feel in a way that you belong to me now--I saved you from dying alone there in the cold and brought you back to my home. I’ve got jettison rights, Sylvie.” She let him hold her hand, and flushed. “You’ll never know what it felt like to hear your voice call to me, to feel you pulling me up. I’d only just dropped a few minutes before, but I’d never have struggled up. It would have been the end.” She trembled in the memory, and he patted her hand. “I don’t know why a man like you lives off here in this wild place, but thank God, you do live here! Though,” she added with wistfulness, twisting her soft mouth, “though I can’t ever quite see why God should care much for a Sylvie Doone.” She touched the lids of her closed eyes. “I wonder why it doesn’t worry me more not to be able to see. Now that the pain’s gone, I don’t seem to care much.” “Thank God. Perhaps, though,” he added half-grudgingly, “in a few days you’ll see again.” She smiled. “I’d just love to see _you_. You must be wonderful!” “What makes you think that?” he asked, his warped face glowing.