“I will always hate this mountain-top,” he said. “I used to love it. I was so close to happiness, and now you’ve snatched it out of my reach.” He drew in sobbing breaths. “No--it’s myself I’m keeping from happiness, not you,” she answered. “I know it will come right, but you must not hurry me. Dear Hugh, be patient.” She found his hand and raised it, a dead weight, to her lips. “Please be patient. Let’s go down out of this wind. I can’t see your world, and I’m cold.” So, in silence--a dull gray silence Hugh led her down into the valley. CHAPTER IX They came down the hill rapidly and carelessly. Hugh, stung by pain and anger, threw himself over the rocks, and Sylvie was too proud to show her timidity or to ask for help. She crept and climbed up and down, saving herself with groping hand, letting one foot test the distances before she put the other down. At last the rattle of his progress sounded so far below that she quavered: “Aren’t you going to wait for me, Hugh?” He stopped short, and for a moment watched her silently; then, smitten by the pathos of her progress--a little child, she seemed, against the mountain toppling so close behind her--he came swinging up to her and gave her his hand. “You _need_ me, anyway, don’t you?” he asked with a tender sort of roughness. She couldn’t answer because she didn’t want him to know that he had made her cry. She kept her face turned from him and hurried along at his side. “Why do you go so fearfully fast?” she was forced at last to protest. “Because I want to get down from this accursed mountain. I want to get down into the woods again where I was happy.” “Hugh”--she pulled at his arm--“you are only a child after all.” “Perhaps.” “Well--” She stopped. “Go home alone, then. I’ll be no worse off than when you found me the first time. Pete will come out and hunt for me. He has a far sweeter temper than you, Hugh, and doesn’t think only of himself.” He swung away at that, resting his hand against a big rock to clear a hole; then, seeing her about to step down into it, he pivoted back, caught her up bodily in his arms, and, laughing, ran with her down the hill, bounding over the rocks, leaping over the crevices, while she clung to him in fright. “You silly child!” he cried. “This is the way I’ll take you home. Now I’ve got you, and I’ll punish you well, too.” She clung to him and begged him to stop. She was frightened by their rash, plunging progress, by his speech. She struggled. “Let me down. I won’t be carried like this against my will. Hugh, let me down!”