Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/128

126 He brought branches with the snow knocked off them; fed a small flame in the chimney-place with the grass, and presently the fire leapt up, warm and ruddy. Jennifer was shivering and trembling, and her skirt dripped as she stood up.

"Put on my slicker," said Dick, and flung off the long yellow waterproof he wore. "And get out of those skirts at once, while I bring some more wood."

"Oh, thank you. Thank you. How good you are to me. And you came after me through that storm"

"I'd go through more than that." He broke the sentence. "Take those wet things off," he said, and went out hurriedly.

Outside he stood still with his back to the storm, and a curious light in his eyes. Those moments when he held Jennifer in his arms had shaken him much. He seemed to feel the softness and the lightness of her there yet. Some months ago he had been startled when he first realised that Jennifer was becoming a factor in his life. Then he had been amused. He had played with the idea, letting it grow, interested to find that the sound of her step and of her voice could give him so much pleasure. He believed that the power to love; the power to be excited; the power to feel very warmly about anything on earth had gone out from him. He rejoiced in the thought that it had come back. It seemed to lift the chill that was deadening his life.

"I can care still," he told himself. "Tempest—I am sure I care for Tempest. And now this little girl."

The thought delighted him. It seemed to put colour into existence once more. He was in love with love. He felt like a man who walks again after a long illness. And then gradually the amusement and the pleasure faded off the sensation, leaving him face to face with the naked fact. This love was not any longer a thing to be played with and petted. It was flaming into a strength that he had not believed was left in him. And it flamed the fiercer because he saw how little she guessed at it, and saw, too, where she stood just now, unguarded, undefended, with her love for Ducane crumbling round her.

Jennifer was laughing over the fire when he came back.