The shadow which had fallen upon her face in the last day or two deepened a little.  “It will be cold out there at night.”  She caught at the first excuse which came into her mind.  “It will be better to wait and go down after breakfast.”

He acquiesced with a nod, but made no answer in words, and soon after he left the room, and she, later, peeping cautiously out from the curtain behind the window, saw him walking back and forth before the cabin.

It was an hour or two later when he opened the door and entered.  She did not hear him.  She was standing, her elbow on the mantel-piece and her cheek on her hand, looking down into the fire.  His footsteps roused her from her reverie and she looked up, in that moment of surprise, forgetful of self and therefore self-revealing.  Thus she stood for one fleeting second, holding him with her smile, her whole being seeming to rush out and meet and encompass him and embrace him.  Then her eyelashes drooped long and black on her cheek, and her face was all aflame with color.

He stood still a second, breathing hard.  Then from the shadow he hurled himself into that zone of glowing firelight where she stood.  A white flame passed over his face and lighted his eyes with that burning, incandescent glow that only those cold, blue eyes can show.  Primeval, all preliminary bowing and scraping in the minuet of wooing ignored, he saw his heart’s desire and seized it, lifting the Pearl in his arms, crushing her against his breast, until she, dazed for the moment, lay captured and captive.

But her second of surprised, involuntary non-resistance served her well.  Harry looked into her eyes and forgot his vigilance; and with a twist Pearl slipped through his arms and was across the room.  She stood against the wall of the cabin, her head thrown back, a smile on her white lips, her eyes daring him.

Seagreave took no dares.  It was a part of his creed.  He was across the room in a step, his arms outstretched as if to clasp her.

But Pearl held him with her eyes until at least she covered her face with her hands and wept and leaned toward him, and again Seagreave caught her in his arms with a murmur of passionate and inarticulate words.  “I love you, I love you,” he whispered, his lips seeking hers.

“Pearl, forgive me.  I—­I—­forgot myself, forgive me.  Why, you are as safe here as in your father’s cabin.  It will never happen again.  I’ll never touch you again unless you let me.  Why, Pearl,” with a tremulous attempt at a joke, “for the rest of the time that we’re here you can keep me locked up in the other room if you want to, and just pass my food through the door now and then when you feel like it.”

“Oh, Harry,” she was still sobbing, “I’m such a devil.  All my life I’ve been trying to see what I could get.  I set out to make everything and everybody pay me, and I never got anything but chaff; money and jewels and applause—­all chaff.  The only happiness is giving, and I want to give, give, give to you.  That’s what I been longing to do ever since I loved you, and all I could do was to call you names—­a quitter and a shirker.”  She wept afresh.  “And the worst of it is I mean it, I wish I didn’t, but I do.”