"What would you have me do?" The vibration in her voice hurt him; he could not meet the intensity of appeal in her eyes. "It had commenced before we came to Freeport. I felt that he was growing tired of me, but I believed, if I could be alone with him, in a dull place like this, I might win him back. It seemed the only chance; but—it has failed." The tears were streaming down her face; she reached out her hands to him. "What would you have me do?" she repeated. "Tell me." Forrest had never known her to lose her self-control but once before; the night he had crossed the harbor in the dugout. Even then it was quickly over; she had not spoken of Kingsley’s neglect; he had never heard her so much as breathe a reproach. His great heart ached for her, while he felt the futility of any sympathy he could offer her. He broke away some young growth in front of the fallen tree, and she allowed him, passively, to seat her in the crotch of a great branch. "You are pretty tired," he said gently. "It’s a hard pull up the bluff. And this solitary life is telling on you; I feel the strain of it, myself, sometimes. We will both be glad to get away from Freeport." She threw her arm up over the bole, and dropped her face on it, sobbing. He stood looking seaward. Far out the water was still barred blood-red. Presently he said, "You know the mills are about to shut down? We have been waiting for the Judge, but he will be here in another month, perhaps sooner. There isn’t a doubt he will close. You know we are falling behind. Lumber has dropped to seven dollars a thousand; the San Francisco market is glutted; the bone-yard there has stopped receiving."