A Mating in the Wilds by Ottwell Binns

Author:Ottwell Binns [Binns, Ottwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western, Fiction
ISBN: 9781153758963
Publisher: General Books
Published: 2010-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV. MYSTERIOUS VISITORS

It was snowing again, driving across the lake in the hard wind and drifting in a wonderful wreath about the cabin. To go out of doors would have been the uttermost folly, and Stane busied himself in the fashioning of snow-shoes which now would be necessary before they could venture far afield. The girl was engaged in preparing a meal, and the cabin had an air of domesticity that would probably have utterly misled any stranger who had chanced to look in. Stane, as he worked, was very conscious of the girl's presence, and conscious also that from time to time his companion glanced at him, whilst he bent over the tamarack frames, weaving in and out the webbing of caribou raw-hide. Those glances made his heart leap, though he strove hard to appear unconscious of them. He knew that in her, as in him, the weeks of intimate companionship so dramatically begun had borne its inevitable fruit. The promise she had forced from him but a few days ago came to his mind as he stooped lower over the half-finished snow-shoe. Would he ever be able to redeem it? Would he ever be able to tell her what was in his heart, what indeed had been there since the moment of their first meeting at Fort Malsun?

Between him and the desire of his heart rose those bitter years in prison. Until the stain upon his name was removed and the judgment of the court expurged, he felt he could not tell her what he wished, what indeed he was sure she would not be averse to hearing. Of Helen herself he had no doubt. She already had declared her faith in his innocence, and the generosity of her nature in all its depth and breadth had been revealed to him. To her, the years of his prison life were as though they had never been, or at the most were an injustice which he had suffered, and his name in her eyes had suffered no soiling. That if he spoke she would respond, finely, generously, with all the fulness of her splendid womanhood, he had no doubt. And yet, he told himself, he must never speak until he could do so without blame; for whilst to her the past was nothing, the people among whom she ordinarily moved would remember, and if she united her life with his she would, like himself, become a social exile. And there was a further reason for silence. If he allowed the girl to commit herself to him whilst they were alive in the wilderness, it would be said that he had taken advantage of a rather delicate situation—using it for his selfish ends, and his pride as a man revolted against that. He clenched his teeth at the thought, and unconsciously frowned. No it should never be said that he——

“Why that dark scowl?” asked the girl laughingly. “Is my lord displeased with the odours of the dinner that his servant prepares?”

Stane joined in her laughter.

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