inite sadness from the hill.
The North Wind, a reality now, would be a forgotten myth: she would
forget that she had seen the woodland caribou, quivering with
irrepressible vigor against the snowfields. The thrill, the
exhilaration of battle, the heat of red blood in her veins would be
strangers soon: the whole adventure would seem like some happy,
impossible dream. Never to hear a friendly voice wishing her good
morning, never a returning step on the threshold, the touch of a strong
hand in a moment of fear! She was aghast and crushed at the realization
that this man was going out of her life forever. She would leave him to
his forests,--their shadows hiding him forever from her gaze.

She found it hard to believe that she could fit into her old niche.
Some way, this northern adventure had changed the very fiber of her
soul. She could find no joy at the thought of the old gayeties she had
once loved, the beauty and the warmth. Was it not true that Harold
would go out beside her, the lover of her girlhood? His uncle would
start him in business; her course with him would be smooth. But her
hands were cold and her heart sick at the thought.

As the hours passed, the realization of her impending departure seemed
to grow, like a horror, in her thoughts. She still made her pathetic
effort to be gay. It would not do for these men to know the truth, so
she laughed often and her words were joyous. She fought back the tears
that burned in her eyelids. She could only play the game; there was no
way out.

She could conceive of no circumstances whereby her fate would be
altered. She knew now, as well as she knew the fact of her own life,
that she had been trapped and snared and cheated by a sardonic destiny.
For the moment she wished she had never fought her way back to the cabin
with Bill after yesterday's adventure, but that side by side in the
drifts, they had yielded to the Shadow and the cold.

Through the dragging hours of afternoon, Harold seemed restless and
uneasy. He smoked impatiently and was nervous and abstracted in the
hours of talk. But the afternoon died at last. Once more the shadows
lengthened over the snow; the dusk grew; the first, bright stars thrust
through the gray canopy above them. Virginia went to the work of
cooking supper,--the last supper in this little, unforgettable cabin
in the snow.

Both Bill and Virginia started with amazement at the sound of tapping
knuckles on the door. H