se; she let a subject drop as soon as it was broached.
It was over two months now since Maurice had seen her, and he was
startled by the change that had taken place in her. Her face seemed to
have grown longer; and there were hollows in the fine oval of the
cheeks, in consequence of which the nose looked larger, and more
pinched. The chin-lines were sharpened, the eyes more sunken, while the
shadows beneath them were as dark as though they were plastered on with
bistre. But it was chiefly the expression of the face that had altered:
the lifelessness of the eyes was new to it, and the firm compression of
the mouth: now, when she smiled, no thin line of white appeared, such
as he had been used to watch for.

Even more marked than this, though, was the change that had taken place
in her manner. He had known her as passionately self-assertive; and he
could not now accustom himself to the condition of apathy in which he
found her. "Moping to death" had been no exaggeration; help was needed
here, and at once, if she were not to be irretrievably injured.

As he thought these things, he talked at random. There were not many
topics, however, that could be touched on with impunity, and he
returned more than once to the ice and the skating, as offering a kind
of neutral ground, on which he was safe. And Louise listened, and
sometimes assented; but her look was that of one who listens to the
affairs of another world. Could she not be persuaded to join them on
the JOHANNATEICH, he was asking her. What matter though she did not
skate! It was easily learned. Madeleine had been a beginner that
winter, and now seldom missed an afternoon.

"Oh, if Madeleine is there, I should not go," she said with a touch of
the old arrogance.

Then he told her of the frozen river, with its long, lonely, grey-white
reaches. Her eyes kindled at this, he fancied, and in her answer was
more of herself. "I have never trodden on ice in my life. Oh, I should
be afraid--horribly afraid!"

For those who did not skate there were chairs, he urged--big,
green-painted, sledge-like chairs, which ran smoothly. The ice was many
inches thick; there was not the least need to be afraid.

But she only smiled, and did not answer.

"Then I can't persuade you?" he asked, and was annoyed at his own
powerlessness. She can go with Eggis, he told himself, and
simultaneously spoke out the thought. "I saw you on the bridge the
other day."

But if he had imagined this wou