During these days she had taken up the habit of sitting
by herself in the flower-room, ostensibly with her book or sewing; but
when they glanced in through the open door, her hands were lying idle
on her lap and her eyes fixed dreamily on some opening blossom. Hours
she sat thus, without stirring.
Waring's plan was a wild one; no boat could sail through the ice, no
foot could cross the wide rifts made by the thaw, and weeks of the
bitterest weather still lay between them and the spring.
'Along-shore,' he said.
'And die of cold and hunger,' answered Fog.
'Old man, why are you not afraid of me?' said Waring, pausing in his
work with a lowering glance. 'Am I not stronger than you, and the
master, if I so choose, of your castle of logs?'
'But you will not so choose.'
'Do not trust me too far.'
'Do not trust you,--but God.'
'For a wrecker and murderer, you have, I must say, a remarkably serene
conscience,' sneered Waring.
Again the old man shrank, and crept silently away.
But when in the early dawn a dark figure stood on the ice adjusting
its knapsack, a second figure stole down the ladder. 'Will you go,
then,' it said, 'and leave the child?'
'She is no child,' answered the younger man, sternly; 'and you know
it.
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