And in that moment he heard a little breath that was almost a sob.

“It’s Peter,” she said, before he could speak.  “Oh, Roger, why didn’t we bring Peter?”

“Possibly—­we should have,” he replied, skipping a stroke with his paddle.  “But I think we have done the best thing for Peter.  He is a wilderness dog, and has never known anything different.  Over there, where we are going—­”

“I understand.  And some day, Father John will bring him?”

“Yes.  He has promised that.  Peter will come to us when Father John comes.”

She had turned, looking into the pit-gloom ahead of them, so dark that the canoe seemed about to drive against a wall.  Under its bow the water gurgled like oil.

“We are entering the big cedar swamp,” he explained.  “It is like Blind Man’s Buff, isn’t it?  Can you see?”

“Not beyond the bow of the canoe, Roger.”

“Work back to me,” he said, “very carefully.”

She came, obediently.

“Now turn slowly, so that you face the bow, and lean back with your head against my knees.”

This also, she did.

“This is much nicer,” she whispered, nestling her head comfortably against him.  “So much nicer.”

By leaning over until his back nearly cracked he was able to find her lips in the darkness.

“I was thinking of the brush that overhangs the stream,” he explained when he had straightened himself.  “Sitting up as you were it might have caused you hurt.”

There was a little silence between them, in which his paddle caught again its slow and steady rhythm.  Then,

“Were you thinking only of the brush, Roger—­and of the hurt it might cause me?”

“Yes, only of that,” and he chuckled softly.

“Then I don’t think it nice here at all,” she complained.  “I shall sit up straight so the brush may put my eyes out!”

But her head pressed even closer against him, and careful not to interrupt his paddle-stroke she touched his face for an instant with her hand.

“It’s there,” she purled, as if utterly comforted.  “I wanted to be sure—­it is so dark!”

With cimmerian blackness on all sides of them, and a chaotic tunnel ahead, they were happy.  Staring straight before him, though utterly unable to see, McKay sensed in every movement he made and in every breath he drew the exquisite thrill of a miracle.  And the same thrill swept into him and through him from the softly breathing body of Nada.  Light or darkness made no difference now.  Together, inseparable from this time forth, they had started on the one great adventure of their lives, and for them fear had ceased to exist.  The night sheltered them.  Its very blackness held in its embrace a warmth of welcome and of unending hope.  Twice in the next half hour he put his hand to Nada’s face, and each time she pressed her lips against it, sweet with that confidence which so completely possessed her soul.