He did not suspect that the source of those footsteps might be Sophie Carr until she stood unmistakably framed in the doorway.  He rose to his feet with a glad cry of welcome, albeit haltingly articulated.  He was suddenly reluctant to face her with the marks of conflict upon his face.

“May I come in?” she asked coolly—­and suited her action to the request before he made reply.

She sat down on a box just within the door and looked soberly at him, scanning his face.  Her hands lay quietly in her lap and she did not seem to see Thompson’s involuntarily extended arms.  There was about her none of the glowing witchery of yesterday.  She lifted to him a face thoughtful, even a little sad.  And Thompson’s hands fell, his heart keeping them company.  It was as if the somberness of those wind-swept woods had crept into his cabin.  It stilled the rush of words that quivered on his lips.  Sophie, indeed, found utterance first.

“I’m sorry that you and Tommy fought,” she said constrainedly.  “I didn’t know until this morning.  It was cowardly of me to run away.  But it was foolish to fight.  It didn’t occur to me that you two would.  I suppose you wonder what brought me here.  I was worried for fear you had been hurt.  I saw Tommy, but he wouldn’t talk.”

“I daresay I’m not a pretty object to look at,” Thompson admitted.  “But I’m really not much the worse.”

“No.  I can see that,” she said.  “Tommy is very quick and very strong—­I was a little afraid.”

The contrition, the hint of pity in her voice stirred up the queer personal pride he had lately acquired.

“I don’t suppose Ashe has any monopoly of strength and quickness,” he remarked.  “That—­but there, I don’t want to talk about that.”

He came over close beside her and looked down with all his troubled heart in his clear blue eyes—­so that the girl turned her gaze away and her fingers wove nervously together.

“My dear,” the unaccustomed phrase broke abruptly, with a fierce tenderness, from his lips.  “I love you—­which I think you know without my saying so.  I want you.  Will you marry me?  I—­”

Sophie warded off the impetuous outstretching of his arms and sprang to her feet, facing him with all the delicate color gone out of her cheeks, a sudden heave to her breast.  She shook her head.  “No,” she said.  “I won’t penalize myself to that extent—­nor you.  I won’t bind myself by any such promise.  I won’t even admit that I might.”

He caught her by the shoulders and shook her roughly.

“Yesterday,” he said hoarsely, “you let me kiss you—­your lips burned me—­you rested your head against me as if it belonged there.  What sort of a woman are you?  Sophie!  Sophie!”

“I know,” she returned.  “But yesterday was yesterday.  This is another day.  Yesterday—­oh, you wouldn’t understand if I told you.  Yesterday I was bursting with happiness, like a bird in the spring.  I like you, big man with the freckled face.  You came down here and stood beside me and smiled at me.  And—­and that’s all—­a minute’s madness.  We can’t marry on that.  I can’t.  I won’t.”