I was nearly crazy when you
found me, Mr. Garth."
"Please call me Hugh," he murmured, taking her hand in his. "I feel
in a way that you belong to me now--I saved you from dying alone there
in the cold and brought you back to my home. I've got jettison rights,
Sylvie." She let him hold her hand, and flushed.
"You'll never know what it felt like to hear your voice call to me,
to feel you pulling me up. I'd only just dropped a few minutes before,
but I'd never have struggled up. It would have been the end." She
trembled in the memory, and he patted her hand. "I don't know why
a man like you lives off here in this wild place, but thank God, you
do live here! Though," she added with wistfulness, twisting her soft
mouth, "though I can't ever quite see why God should care much for
a Sylvie Doone." She touched the lids of her closed eyes. "I wonder
why it doesn't worry me more not to be able to see. Now that the
pain's gone, I don't seem to care much."
"Thank God. Perhaps, though," he added half-grudgingly, "in a few
days you'll see again."
She smiled. "I'd just love to see _you_. You must be wonderful!"
"What makes you think that?" he asked, his warped face glowing.
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