"You talk to him,
Sylvie."
"Yes, you talk--you talk. Do you remember how I talked to you when
you were afraid of the bears--ah!" He drew her head savagely against
his breast, folded his arms about it, stroked the hair. "Sylvie! Is
it all right? Can it be--the same?"
"Yes, yes, why not?"
"Were you frightened?"
"Not after the first. After they had described you, I knew that they
were looking for the wrong man, and then I felt all right. I didn't
know--poor Hugh!--how cold and cramped you were. What a shame that
you took a false alarm and hid yourself! I don't believe there would
have been a bit of danger if you'd stayed out. They'd never even heard
of you, I suppose."
Her talk, so gay, so strangely at cross-purposes with reality, was
like a vivifying wine to him. The color came back into his face; a
wild sort of relief lighted his eyes.
"Then it didn't occur to you, Sylvie, that that brute might have been
me--that the men might, after all, have been describing me--eh?" he
asked, risking all his hope on one throw.
She laughed, and, lifting herself a little in his arms, touched her
soft mouth to his. "But, Hugh, you told me your story, don't you
remember? And it is gloriously, mercifully different from
Rutherford's.
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