out making a reply. He bent forward,
leaning against the wind, and in silence trod a path for his friend
through the drifted heaps. At the door of the shed he stood back to
let Larry pass.

"I'll not go in yet. I'll tramp about in the snow a bit until--Don't
sit up for me--" He turned swiftly away into the night, but Larry
caught him by the arm and brought him back.

"Come in with me, lad; I'm lonely. We'll smoke together, then we'll
sleep well enough."

Then Harry went in and built up the fire, throwing on logs until the
shed was flooded with light and the bare rock wall seemed to leap
forward in the brilliance, but he did not smoke; he paced restlessly
about and at last crept into his bunk and lay with his face to the
wall. Larry sat long before the fire. "It's the music that's got in my
blood," he said. "Katherine could sing and lilt the Scotch airs like a
bird. She had a touch for the instrument, too."

But Harry could not respond to his friend's attempted confidence in
the rare mention of his wife's name. He lay staring at the rough stone
wall close to his face, and it seemed to him that his future was
bounded by a barrier as implacable and terrible as that. All through
the night he heard the deep tones of Madam Manovska's voice, and the
visions of the poem passed through his mind. He saw the strange old
man, the murderer, Cain, seated in the tomb, bowed and remorseful, and
in the darkness still the Eye. But side by side with this somber
vision he saw the interior of the cabin, and Amalia, glowing and warm
and splendid in her rich gown, with the red firelight playing over
her, leaning toward him, her wonderful eyes fixed on his with a regard
at once inscrutable and sympathetic. It was as if she were looking
into his heart, but did not wish him to know that she saw so deeply.

Towards morning the snow clouds were swept from the sky, and a late
moon shone out clear and cold upon a world carved crisply out of
molten silver. Unable longer to bear that waking torture, Harry King
rose and went out into the night, leaving his friend quietly sleeping.
He stood a moment listening to Larry's long, calm breathing; then
buttoning his coat warmly across his chest, he closed the shed door
softly behind him and floundered off into the drifts, without heeding
the direction he was taking, until he found himself on the brink of
the chasm where the river, sliding smoothly over the rocks high above
his head, was forever tumbling