ut through the little portico he went, down
the walk outside the very parlor window through which he had looked
out awhile ago, but through which he did not now look in as he
passed; through the gate, and up the branch road to the highway. He
was possessed by a confusion of thoughts and feelings,--temporary and
superficial elation at having put Elizabeth's preferred lover in so
bad a light, wild ideas of some future crossing of her path, swift
dreams of a future conquest of her in spite of all, a fierce desire
for such action as would lead to that end. He was eager to rejoin the
army now, to participate in the fighting that would bring about the
humbling of her cause and make it the more in his power to master her.
He heeded little the snow that impeded his steps as his boots sank
into it, and which, in falling, blinded his eyes, tickled his face,
and clung to his hair. The tumult of flakes was akin to that of his
feelings, and he was in mood for encountering such opposition as the
storm made to his progress.

Arriving at the post-road, he turned and went northward. At his left
lay the great lawn fronting the manor-house, and separated from the
road by hedge and palings. He could see, across the snowy expanse,
between the dark trunks and whitened branches of the trees, the long
front of the manor-house, its roof and its porticoes already covered
with snow, the light glowing in the one exposed window of the east
parlor. As he quieted down within, he felt pleasantly towards the
house, to which his week's half-solitary residence in it, with the
comfort he had enjoyed there and the books he had read, had given him
an attachment. He cast on it a last affectionate look, then breasted
the weather onward, wondering what things the future might have in
store for him.

He had little fear of not reaching the American lines in safety. It
was unlikely that any of the enemy's marauders would be out on such a
night, and more unlikely that any regular military movement would be
making on the neutral ground. He expected to meet no one on the road,
but he would keep a sharp lookout in all directions as he went, and,
in case of any human apparition, would take to the fields or the
woods. But all the world, thought he, would stay within doors this
white night.

Sliding back a part of every step he took in the snow, he passed the
boundary of the Philipse lawn, and that of such part of the grounds as
included, with other appurtenances, t