ys to see him. But after the trains begun running nobody ever
come by here to speak of, and mother never could get it through her head
what had happened, and it preyed on her right along till she died."

As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, cutting
off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome's silence fell with it,
letting down between us the old veil of reticence. This time the wind
did not cease with the return of the snow. Instead, it sprang up to
a gale which now and then, from a tattered sky, flung pale sweeps of
sunlight over a landscape chaotically tossed. But the bay was as good
as Frome's word, and we pushed on to the Junction through the wild white
scene.

In the afternoon the storm held off, and the clearness in the west
seemed to my inexperienced eye the pledge of a fair evening. I finished
my business as quickly as possible, and we set out for Starkfield with
a good chance of getting there for supper. But at sunset the clouds
gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall
straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal
diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning. It
seemed to be a part of the thickening darkness, to be the winter night
itself descending on us layer by layer.

The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us. Two or three times some ghostly
landmark sprang up to warn us that we were astray, and then was sucked
back into the mist; and when we finally regained our road the old horse
began to show signs of exhaustion. I felt myself to blame for having
accepted Frome's offer, and after a short discussion I persuaded him
to let me get out of the sleigh and walk along through the snow at the
bay's side. In this way we struggled on for another mile or two, and
at last reached a point where Frome, peering into what seemed to me
formless night, said: "That's my gate down yonder."

The last stretch had been the hardest part of the way. The bitter cold
and the heavy going had nearly knocked the wind out of me, and I could
feel the horse's side ticking like a clock under my hand.

"Look here, Frome," I began, "there's no earthly use in your going any
farther--" but he interrupted me: "Nor you neither. There's been about
enough of this for anybody."

I understood that he was offering me a