absolutely, hopelessly alone.

Thayer spent a quiet, contented day. For the time being, he had
dismissed Lorimer from his mind, and he gave himself up to the luxury of
taking thought for no one but himself. The sensation was very luxurious
from its very novelty. He wrote a long letter to Arlt, responded to a
dozen notes of invitation which had pursued him from the city, loitered
about the office and ended the day with a novel which had reached him
when the mail came in, that noon. It was still early when he went to
bed. As he drew the shades, from sheer force of habit he glanced across
at the cottage. Its lights were burning brightly, their quiet steadiness
giving no hint of the hideous carnival within.

No healthy man can go to bed, two hours before his usual time, and
expect to sleep peacefully till dawn. At four o'clock, Thayer waked
suddenly, with the firm belief that his slumber must have reached quite
around the clock. He struck a match and looked at his watch.

Restlessly he rose and began to walk up and down the room. The storm had
increased during the night. He could hear the snow sifting against the
windows and, far off at a distant corner of the house, a loosened blind
was beating to and fro in the wind. The sound echoed drearily through
the almost deserted barracks, and added infinitely to the loneliness of
the wilderness, and of the night, and of the storm.

Thayer paused at the window, raised the shade and peered out into the
night. At first, he could see only the darkness, no longer black, but
gray with the swirling snow. The ceaseless, pitiless fall of the flakes
fascinated him, and he stood long, watching them take shape in the
distance, come whirling against the glass and slide aimlessly down the
pane, as so many had fallen before them. Then, as the storm lost
something of its fury, he glanced up and out across the night. The next
instant, his face was pressed against the pane, while his clasped
fingers shielded his eyes from the light within the room. In the
Lorimers' cottage, half a mile away, the lights were still burning. On
such a night and at such an hour, those lights meant trouble: illness,
or perhaps something infinitely worse.

He had stood at the window longer than he had realized, and the clock in
the office struck five as Thayer, fully dressed, stepped out into the
hall. With the waning of the night, the storm was increasing again and,
strong man as he was, Thayer faltered as he opene