CHAPTER V.
BEAUTY IN DISTRESS "Can you tell me where I can get some ice?
Can you sell me some ice ?" cried the lady excitedly, when she was still some yards distant from Cleggett.
"Ice ?" The request was so unusual that Cleggett was not certain that he had understood.
"Yes, ice! Ice!" There was no mistaking the genuine character of her eagerness; if she had been begging for her life she could not have been more in earnest.

"Don't tell me that you have none on your boat.
Don't tell me that! Don't tell me that!" And suddenly, like a woman who has borne all that she can bear, she burst undisguisedly into a paroxysm of weeping.

Cleggett, stirred by her beauty and her trouble, stepped nearer to her, for she swayed with her emotion as if she were about to fall.

Impulsively she put a hand on his arm, and the Pomeranian, dropped unceremoniously to the ground, sprang at Cleggett snarling and snapping as if sure he were the author of the lady's misfortunes.
"You will think I am mad," said the lady, endeavoring to control her tears, "but I MUST have ice.

Don't tell me that you have no ice!" "My dear lady," said Cleggett, unconsciously clasping, in his anxiety to reassure her, the hand that she had laid upon his arm, "I have ice--you shall have all the ice you want!" "Oh," she murmured, leaning towards him, "you cannot know----" But the rest was lost in an incoherent babble, and with a deep sigh she fell lax into Cleggett's arms.