There were no stars or moon in the sky this night.  The wind had changed, and came from the north.  In it was the biting chill of the Arctic, and overhead was a gray-dun mass of racing cloud.  A dozen times Jean turned his face anxiously from the fire into the north, and held wet fingers high over his head to see if in the air was that peculiar sting by which the forest man forecasts the approach of snow.

At last he said to Philip:  “The wind will grow, M’sieur,” and picked up his axe.

Philip followed with his own, and they piled about Josephine’s tent a thick protection of spruce and cedar boughs.  Then together they brought three or four big logs to the fire.  After that Philip went into their own tent, stripped off his outer garments, and buried himself in his sleeping bag.  For a long time he lay awake and listened to the increasing wail of the wind in the tall spruce tops.  It was not new to him.  For months he had fallen asleep with the thunderous crash of ice and the screaming fury of storm in his ears.  But to-night there was something in the sound which sunk him still deeper into the gloom which he had found it impossible to throw off.  At last he fell asleep.

When he awoke he struck a match and looked at his watch.  It was four o’clock, and he dressed and went outside.  The wind had died down.  Jean was already busy over the cook-fire, and in Josephine’s tent he saw the light of a candle.  She appeared a little later, wrapped close in a thick red Hudson’s Bay coat, and with a marten-skin cap on her head.  Something in her first appearance, the picturesqueness of her dress, the jauntiness of the little cap, and the first flush of the fire in her face filled him with the hope that sleep had given her better spirit.  A closer glance dashed this hope.  Without questioning her he knew that she had spent another night of mental torture.  And Jean’s face looked thinner, and the hollows under his eyes were deeper.

All that day the sky hung heavy and dark with cloud, and the water was rough.  Early in the afternoon the wind rose again, and Croisset ran alongside them to suggest that they go ashore.  He spoke to Philip, but Josephine interrupted quickly: 

“We must go on, Jean,” she demanded.  “If it is not impossible we must reach Adare House to-night.”

“It will be late—­midnight,” replied Jean.  “And if it grows rougher—­”

A dash of spray swept over the bow into the girl’s face.

“I don’t care for that,” she cried.  “Wet and cold won’t hurt us.”  She turned to Philip, as if needing his argument against Jean’s.  “Is it not possible to get me home to-night?” she asked.

“It is two o’clock,” said Philip.  “How far have we to go, Jean?”

“It is not the distance, M’sieur—­it is that,” replied Jean, as a wave sent another dash of water over Josephine.  “We are twenty miles from Adare House.”

Philip looked at Josephine.