Bryant stirred, then began to look about the room.  He grew observant.

“This is bad for you, Imogene,” he said, presently.  “Impossible!  Your uncle is right.  This wretched cabin doesn’t keep out cold or wind; you have to chop wood and carry water, tasks beyond your strength; you’re lonely, you’re ill at times—­”

“And Ruth?”

“Well?”

“You know her situation.  Financial, I mean.”

“I less than any one know it.  Extraordinary, too, now that I think of it,” he said, reflectively.  “What is her situation?” Immediately he added, “Of course, I guess that she has no great means and she has said that she lacks training to earn a livelihood.  But her family?”

“She lived with an aunt until she came here, Lee.”

“So she mentioned.”

“They didn’t get on well together after Ruth went to stay with her on her parents’ death,” Imogene explained.  “The woman was narrow-minded and exacting, especially in matters of amusements and religion.  You know the type.”  Bryant nodded.  “And Ruth was young, exuberant, and, as I now see, wilful.  Their clashes were the cause of her desire to come West.  We had been good friends, but not intimates; and I marvel at myself now at having gone so rashly into a thing like this, without inquiring whether our habits, tastes, desires, natures, everything, fitted us for prolonged companionship.  Yes, I marvel.”  She sat motionless, staring at the lamp fixedly.  “However, I’m in it now up to my neck.  Ruth declares that she will never return to her aunt.”

“And she can’t earn a living.”

“Nor would if she could, I fear,” Imogene added, a little sadly.  “At least, now.  It would be too dull.”

“Then I must marry her at once.”

Imogene gave him a strange look.

“She is waiting,” said she.

“For marriage?”

“No, to see how you succeed.  Oh, to have to say these things is dreadful, Lee!” she exclaimed.  But Bryant brushed this aside with a gesture almost august in its indifference.  “If you finish your project on time, she will be ready for the ceremony,” the girl went on.  “If you fail, she’ll postpone it until you’re able to provide more than just a roof, a chair, and a broom.  Her very words!  Love must not prevent people from being practical, from her viewpoint.  So, as I say, she’s waiting to discover the outcome.”  A corner of her mouth twisted up while she paused.  Then she concluded in a low voice, “And probably something else.”

Bryant had again fallen into study.  Imogene doubted if he had heard her added remark, and she could not divine from his countenance how fierce or in what direction his covered passion was beating.

“It will be too late,” said he, suddenly and, as it seemed to her, irrelevantly.

Then she thought that she understood.

“He’s going home in a few days, for the Christmas holidays,” she stated.  “Possibly then Ruth will—­I’m planning for us all to be at uncle’s, you with us.”