Snow-Blind | Page 8

lost. I meant to come round back to the road,
but before I knew it, I didn't know which way the road was. The pines
were so dense, so all alike, they looked almost as if they kept sort of
shifting about me. I tried to follow back on my footprints, but in some
places snow had shaken down from the branches. And there were so
many--so dreadfully many other tracks--of animals--" She put her
hands over her face and shrank down in her chair.
"Forget about them, Sylvie," Hugh admonished gently. "Even if there
had been bears about, they wouldn't likely have bothered you any."
"I can't bring myself to tell you about that time--I can't!"
"Don't, then--only, how did you live through the night, my dear?"

"I don't know--except that I never stayed still. I got out from the trees
because I was afraid of bears, and I lost my hat. The sun was like fire
shining up from underneath and down from up above. My eyes began
to hurt almost at once, and by the time night came, it was agony. The
darkness didn't seem to help me any either; the glare still seemed to
come in under my lids. I couldn't sleep for the pain. I knew I'd freeze if
I stood still, so I kept moving all night, trampling round in circles, I
suppose. Next morning the terrible glare began again. Then everything
went red. 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.
"You're so strong and young, such thick hair, such finely shaped hands
and such a voice." Sylvie's associates had been of a profession that
deals perpetually in personalities. "If I'd been blind a long time, I
suppose I could just run my hand over your face, and I'd know what
you look like. But I can't tell a thing." She felt for his face and brushed

it eagerly with her fingers, laughing at herself. "I just know that you
have thick eyelashes and are clean-shaven. Is Bella your wife? And that
big little boy your son?"
He started. "No, she's a faithful thing, the boy's nurse. And the kid's my
young brother--a great gawk of a boy for his age, a regular bean-pole."
"It's so hard to tell anything about people if you can't see them. I
wouldn't have thought he was so big. Is he about fourteen or fifteen?
He speaks so low and gently; he might be any age."
"And a man's height--pretty near too big to lick, though he needs it."
"And Bella, what's she like?"
"A dried-up mummy of a woman."
The kitchen door creaked. Hugh started and shot a look over his
shoulder. Bella stood on the kitchen threshold with an expressionless
face and lowered eyelids.
"Why did you jump?" asked Sylvie nervously.
Hugh wet his lips with his tongue. "Nothing. The door creaked. Go on.
Tell me more, child," he urged.
"No. I want to hear about you now. Tell me your story."
Hugh clenched his hands and flushed darkly. He glanced over his
shoulder with a furtive look, but Bella had gone.
"No one else rightly knows my story, Sylvie. Will you promise me
never to speak of it, to Bella, to Pete, to any one?"
"Of course, I promise." Her face beamed with the pride of a child
entrusted with a secret.
Then, lowering his voice and moving closer to her chair, he began a
fictitious history, a history of persecuted and heroic innocence, of

reckless adventure, of