She had transformed an untidy, uncared-for bachelor habitation into a wholesome, clean establishment of well-ordered life.  She had lifted a lazy Chinaman into a reasonable specimen of comparative energy, and saw to it that meals were well and carefully served, and partaken of at regular hours by men who quickly discovered the futility of protest.

But her work by no means ended there.  From one end to the other the house was swept and garnished, and the neglect of years disposed of.  Bedrooms were transformed from mere sleeping places to luxury.  Linen was duly laundered, and clothing was brushed, and folded, and mended in a fashion such as its owners had never thought possible.  She was utterly untiring in her labours, and in the process of them she steadily moved on towards the thing she craved for herself.

The men realised the tremendous effort of it all.  And Bull Sternford, for all his absorption in his work, had watched with troubled feelings.  His love for Nancy had perhaps robbed him of that vision which should have told him of the necessity, in her own interests, for that which the girl was doing.  So there were times when he had protested, times when he felt that simple humanity demanded that she should not be permitted to submit herself to so rough a slavery.  But Nancy had countered every protest with an irresistible appeal.

“Please, please don’t stop me,” she had cried, almost tearfully.  “It’s just all I can do.  It’s my only hope.  Always, till now, I’ve lived for myself and ambitions.  You know where they have led me—­Ah, no.  Let me go on in my own way.  Let me nurse him back to health.  Let me do these things.  However little I’m able to do there’s some measure of peace in the doing of it.”

So the days and weeks had dragged on, and now the time of Nancy’s imprisonment was drawing to its inevitable close.  With Spring, and the coming of the Myra, she would have to accept her freedom and all it meant.  She would be expected to return to her home in Quebec, and to those who had employed her and sent her on her godless mission.  She understood that.  But she had no intention of returning to Quebec.  She had no intention of returning to the Skandinavia.

During the long hours of her labours she had searched deeply for the thing the future must hold for her.  It was the old process over again.  That great searching she had once done at Marypoint.  But now it was all different.  There had been no sense of guilt then, and the only man who had been concerned in her life had been that unknown stepfather, whom, in her child’s heart, she had learned to hate.  It had been simple enough then.  Now—­now—­