gently moved him
nearer the stove, put coal on the blaze, and loosened the heavy coat.
"Now!" she muttered, and rushed out into the night and storm. The
strength of ten seemed to possess her; and the calmness of desperation
lent her power.

The noise of the wind deadened the sound of the surf. Sometimes she
found herself knee deep in icy water,--for the tide was terribly high.
Then she crawled up to the dunes and felt with mittened hands for the
stiff grass. Presently she came to a rock, a rare thing on that coast,
and she clung to it desperately. It was as true a landmark to the girl
of the Station as a mountain peak would have been to an inland
traveller.

"Only a mile more!" she panted, and then a memory of one of Davy's old
hymns came to her:

"The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land."

She recalled how she, as a little child, had often crouched beside this
very rock when the summer's sun beat hot upon the sand. Summer! Was
there ever such a thing as summer on this ice-bound shore? She dreaded
to set forth again. A stupor was creeping over her, a stupor she had
been trained to fear. She struggled to her feet, but the mad thought of
summer would cling to her benumbed fancy. It fascinated and lured her
dangerously. She saw the Hills rise, many colored, in the blackness. She
saw Thornly's little hut with its door set open to the cool, refreshing
breeze. It was a breeze then, this fierce, cruel wind. It was a gentle
breeze when summer and love held part! She heard again the call of the
golden whistle; and this fancy made her draw her breath in sharp gasps.
She shut her stiff lids and saw Thornly coming over the sunlighted Hills
with his joy-filled face, shining in the summer day!

Oh! if she could but hear that golden call just once again how happy she
would be! Maybe, when death came, God would let Thornly call her in
that way, just as God had let Susan Jane's lover come to her upon the
shining, incoming wave!

But then Thornly was not her lover; she was his and that was different!

"Death!" Again the girl struggled forward. She must not die! Why, Billy
was there alone, in the halfway house--and Billy's duty was still
unperformed.

On, on once again! The wind was blowing in gusts now. It was reckoning
with the near-coming day and was lessening in fury. But the sudden
blasts were almost worse than the steady gale. Janet, weakened and numb,
was hardly upon her way, before she was knocked from her f