d daily these primitive stations, striving to forget his
own bitterness in the presence of a divine grief; and, laying his
troubled heart at his Saviour's feet, would return, strengthened and
comforted, into the busy city.

Christmas now was drawing near, and with its approach a new resolve took
possession of his soul. A fresh light had dawned upon him, and, shaking
off his apathy, he started to work in earnest. All day long he toiled
with a steady purpose, though none were permitted to see the fruit of
his labors. Kala, indeed, unaccustomed to be thwarted in her curiosity,
presented herself at his work-shop door and implored admittance; but not
even to her was the secret revealed.

"It is very unkind of you!" she pouted, hardly doubting that she would
gain her point. "You never kept anything from me in your life before."

Gabriel took her hand and looked with strange, wistful eyes into her
pretty face. "I am keeping nothing from you now," he said. "It is your
wedding-gift that I am fashioning; but you must be content to wait its
completion before you see it. By Christmas it shall be your own."

So Kala, comforted with the thought of future possession, bided her
time, and Gabriel was left in undisputed enjoyment of his solitude. At
first he worked languidly and with little zest; but from interest grew
ambition, and from ambition a passionate love for the labor of his
hands, which threw all other hopes and fears into the background. Kala
was forgotten, and Gabriel, absorbed in the contemplation of his art and
striving as he had never striven before, felt as though some power not
his own were working in him, and that the supreme effort of his life had
come. Yet ever in the midst of his feverish activity a strange weakness
seized and held him powerless in its grasp; and like a keen and sudden
pain came the bitter thought that he might die before his work was done.
Instinctively he felt that his hopes of future fame rested on these few
weeks that were flying pitilessly by, each one carrying with it some
portion of his wasted strength; and that if death should overtake him
with his labor uncompleted his name and memory must perish from the
world. So, like one who flies across a Russian steppe pursued by
starving wolves, Gabriel sped on his task, seeking to out-distance the
grim and noiseless wolf that followed close upon his track.

* * * * *

It was Christmas eve, the anniversary of that snowy ni