iercely. "Well, you can see for
yourself, can't you? All there is of me--" He could not finish his
sentence.

It was snowing heavily. They seemed intensely, cruelly alone. It was as
if all life crept off and left them by themselves in the drifting gray
snow, in their silent little corner of the unconscious, unalterable
world.

Winn put his arm around her and drew her head down on his shoulder.

"It's all right," he said rather thickly. "I won't hurt you."

But he knew that he had hurt her, and that it was all wrong.

She did not cry, but she trembled against his heart. He felt her
shivering as if she were afraid of all the world but him.

"I must stay with you," she whispered. "I must stay with you, mustn't
I?"

He tried not to say "always," but he thought afterward that he must have
said "always."

Then she lifted her curls and her little fur cap with the snow on it
from his shoulder, and looked deep into his eyes. The worst of it was
that hers were filled with joy.

"Winn," she said, "do you love me enough for anything? Not only for
happiness, but, if we had to have dreadful things, enough for dreadful
things?"

She spoke of dreadful things as if they were outside her, and as if they
were very far away.

"I love you enough for anything," said Winn, gravely.

"Tell me," she whispered, "did you ever even think--you liked her as
much?"

Winn looked puzzled; it took him a few minutes to guess whom she meant,
then he said wonderingly:

"My wife, you mean?"

Claire nodded. It was silly how the little word tore its way into her
very heart; she had to bite her lips to keep herself from crying out.
She did not realize that the word was meaningless to him.

"No," said Winn, gravely; "that's the worst of it. I must have been out
of my head. It was a fancy. Of course I thought it was all right, but I
didn't _care_. It was fun rather than otherwise; you know what I mean?
I'm afraid I gave her rather a rotten time of it; but fortunately she
doesn't like me at all. It's not surprising."

"Yes, it is," said Claire, firmly; "it's very surprising. But if she
doesn't care for you, and you don't care for her, can't anything be
done?"

There is something cruel in the astonishing ease with which youth
believes in remedial measures. It is a cruelty which reacts so terribly
upon its possessors.

Winn hesitated; then he told her that he would take her to the ends of
the world. Claire pushed away the ends of the worl