of the world,
believing--what was not true! It seemed like a deceit going over into
eternity!"

Would he say something very dreadful in reply, she wondered; something
that would haunt her for the rest of her days?

She was still bracing herself for the worst,--for he had not yet broken
the silence,--when they came to the gate, fixed there, half closed.
There was just room for Sunbeam to pass out, and Amy fell behind for a
moment. Stephen drew rein and waited for her, while she vainly tried to
close the gate.

"Don't mind that," he said. "It will close of itself when the snow
melts."

She came obediently and walked beside him. They had turned aside from
the direction of Springtown, toward a little house a few rods away. They
were almost there when Stephen spoke again.

"You must be sorry about it all," he said, "though you very wisely leave
that to be understood. You have made a mistake and you think you have
caused another person great and lasting unhappiness. I can't tell
to-night whether that is so or not, but there is one thing that I think
you have a right to know."

"And that is?" She felt that she must fill in the pause, for he
evidently found it difficult to go on.

"I think I know you well enough," he said; "to be sure of your feeling
about it, though it is different from what some people would have under
the circumstances. But somehow I am sure that you will be glad to know,
that when I thought I was going to perish in the storm,--after I was
thrown, and before I had seen that there was shelter near by,--it was
_not you_ my thoughts were running on."

Again he paused while she lifted the latch of the little gate. Then, as
Sunbeam passed through, and Amy walked by his side up the snowy path,
Stephen said:

"I think it must have been a good many minutes that I lay there,
thinking that the end was coming, and the only person in the world that
I seemed to care about was--_my mother_!"

At the word, the bond that had irked her was gently loosed, and he, for
his part, could only wonder that he felt no pain. The great cold
moonlit calm of the night seemed to enter into their hearts, swept
clean by the storm. They looked into one another's faces in the solemn
white light, with a fine new unconcern. Where were all their
perplexities? What had it all been about?

It was as if the snow had melted, and the great gate had closed itself.
Was it Paradise or Purgatory they had shut themselves out from?