Madge listened only for a reasonable period; she rose to her feet.  ’I must go,’ she said.

He found that she proposed to walk on snow-shoes three miles to the nearest house, which belonged to a couple of parish priests, where she would be certain of obtaining a messenger to carry the news of the robbery to the telegraph station.  She could not be brought even to discuss the advisability of her journey; Morin could not be sent, for the servants and Eliz would go mad with terror if left alone.

To Courthope’s imagination her journey seemed to be an abandonment of herself to the utmost danger.  If between the two houses she failed to make progress over high drifts and against a heavy gale, what was to hinder her from perishing?  Then, too, there was that villain, who had seemed to stalk forth from the isolated house afar into the howling night as easily as the Frankenstein demon, and might even now be skulking near—­a dangerous devil—­able to run where others must trudge toilsomely.

Madge, it seemed, had only come to that room to make her confession and invoke protection at the shrine of the lost father; she was ready to set forth without further delay.  She would not, in spite of his most eloquent pleading, set Courthope at liberty to make of him either messenger or companion.

‘The evidence,’ she said sadly, ‘is all against you.  I am very sorry.’

A wilder unrest and vexation at his position returned upon his heart because of the lightening that had come with the impulse of love.  That impulse still remained, an under-current of calm, a knowledge that his will and the power of the world were at one, such as men only feel when they yield themselves to some sudden conversion; but above this new-found faith the cross-currents of strife now broke forth again.  Thus he raged—­

’What was the use of my coming here?  Why should the Fates have sent me here if I cannot go this errand for you, or if I cannot go with you to protect you?  If this beast is walking about on snow-shoes, how do you know that he will not attack you as soon as you are out of sight of the house?’

She seemed to realise that it was strange to be discussing her own safety with her prisoner.  Very curious was the conflict in her face; her strong natural companionableness, her suspicion of him, and her sense of the dignity which her situation demanded, contending together.  It seemed easier for her to disregard his words than to give all the answers which her varying feelings would prompt.  She was tying on a mink cap by winding a woollen scarf about her head.

’Miss Madge!  Miss King!  It is perfectly intolerable!  It—­it is intolerable!’ He stepped nearer as he spoke.  A thought came over him that even the conventional title of ‘Miss’ which he had given her was wholly inappropriate in a situation so strong—­that he and she, merely as man and woman, as rational beings, were met together in a wilderness where conventions were folly.  ’I cannot allow you to risk your life in this way.’  There was a tense emphasis in his words; he felt the natural authority of the protector over the tender thing to be protected, the intimate authority which stress of circumstance may give.