She knew now toward what point he had been talking. Mentally he had been wandering, as Big Louie once wandered in the flesh, in a wide circle that fetched up again against that doubt in himself which was hurting her, even while it was making her happy. He had taken the example of Big Louie and applied it to his own life, and suddenly the girl realized how infinitely greater was his philosophy thereof than was hers. "I shall try to remember that," she answered soberly. "If ever I am lost I--I shall try to wait confidently for daylight, and keep my eyes to the fore." She was near to tears when he stooped and knelt in the snow to tighten a thong slipping from one webbed foot. Below them stretched a plain of shimmering frost-points, bounded by inscrutable walls of black timber. Somewhere within the warmer heart of a swamp a fox yapped hungrily; somewhere within her own heart his whimsical discourse had awakened a sense of the mystery of his wilderness--its friendship for those who love it--its implacable enmity for those who do not understand. And he looked up just when that emotion came flooding into her face. "It is wonderful--wonderful--wonderful!" she breathed, throwing out both arms with that ecstatic impulsiveness which he knew so well. "Now I know why you said men always return to it, once they have felt its spell." "You are lovelier than you know!" came back from him, almost gruffly again; and she could not parry with lightness so swift and strained a speech. "You always tell me very pretty things," was all she could think of to say in reply. But then, rising, he flung back his head and shook himself as if throwing off a burden too restraining and irksome. He laughed aloud, and from that minute until he loosed her feet from the snowshoes he was more like her "blue flannel and corduroy" lover again. But his attack no longer made her fear herself. "If I cared for you, yes," he made her admit before he would let her go in that night. "If I cared for you, my engagement to no man could stand in the way. But that is the reason I know I do not care." She had seen him grave with doubt that night; seen him fight to shake it off. There was doubt in his answer now. "Because I am not----" But he could not force himself to ask it. "Because I could never care as you would demand the woman should care who marries you." She wanted to help him a little, she didn't know just why. Pity is a very dangerous emotion, when pity is not sought. "You are loving me that way this minute," he said, but his words were dogged. "Loving me more than you know."