had retired for the night, Magarth and Archie sat by the fire.  Magarth guessed how it was going with Archie and told him he could not stand out the winter.  Then, with kindly humor, he gave Archie to understand that if he and Norah would make it up, he would take him as a partner in his business, which was growing too large for him to manage alone.  Archie was astounded, making no reply beyond thanking him for the hint.  When he turned into a bunk in the corner of the store he was so tired that he fell asleep and dreamt not of Norah but of the daily misery he was enduring.

In the morning Archie rose and, without waking anybody, slipped out and made his way to his comfortless shanty.  Those who love the forest know in how many tones it speaks, varying with the season and the force of the wind.  When in full leaf and swayed by a summer breeze the sound is of falling water, of a phantom Niagara; in the winter, when the trees are bare, the Northwest blast shrieks through their tops and there are groanings diversified by sharp cries as some decayed branch is snapped or tree falls.  It was amid these doleful sounds Archie swung his ax.  He was not conscious of the bitter cold for his work kept him warm, but his brain was full of racking thoughts.  He had toiled like a slave for nigh six months and had accomplished little, with every imaginable deprivation he had saved nothing, and for the next six months he foresaw cold and hunger, which he doubted he could survive.  Here was an offer that meant comfort, and relief from a penniless condition.  Should he not accept it?  Was it not selfishness that whispered his doing so?  Did he not come to these woods to hew out from the heart of them a home for those he loved?  Was he going to throw up his purpose to benefit himself?  Would that be right?  There was a whisper, You will be able to help them by sending money.  Is money-help all they can claim from me?  Is sending them so many dollars a month all the command to honor father and mother means?  Do they not desire to be beside me and is it not my duty to sustain and comfort them while life lasts?  Shall I place other cares between them and me, leaving them second instead of first?  So he went on arguing mentally, until the larger consideration came uppermost, Was it justifiable to marry a woman for whom he had no special regard, because by so doing it would be to his worldly advantage?  Then he, for the first time in his life, tried to define what marriage was.  Was marriage for comfort and ease such a union as his conscience could approve?  It was a searching question, and while he swung the ax he argued it aloud.  What was marriage without love?  No marriage, he shouted, as his ax delved into the side of a tree.  Love alone can blend two lives, and without love marriage is sacrilege.  No, he would not think of Magarth’s offer, he would cast it behind him, and go on as he was doing.  Then peace came to him, and he dwelt on the communings with his sister, and the pledge he had given her on parting.  For the first time that day he began to sing, and when he sat on a log to eat the bread he had brought for his dinner, he threw crumbs to a squirrel that left her hole to survey him.