naked oak trees
set amongst pines. Here, too, the deep snow was trampled with the
passing of horses--the searching party, she knew without being told.
The driver spoke to the two behind him, after a ten-minute silence
against the heavy background of roaring overhead.

"Know that first turn, up ahead here? If we don't have to shovel
through, we'll be lucky."

From the back of the sleigh where he was sitting flat, Murphy spoke
suddenly. "A-ah, an' av ye don't have to saw yer trail through a down
tree, ye'll be luckier sthill, I dunno. An' it's likely there ain't a
saw in the hull outfit!" He spat into the storm and added grimly, "An'
how ye're to git the shled around a three-fut tree, I dunno."

"Sure takes you to think up bad luck, Murph," Hank retorted. "We ain't
struck any down timber so fur."

"An' ye ain't there yet, neither--not be four mile ye ain't."

Mrs. Singleton Corey, wrapped in her furs, with snow packing full
every fold and wrinkle of her clothing left uncovered by the robe, did
not hear the aimless argument that followed between Hank and Murphy.
The sonorous _shwoo-oosh_ of the wind-tormented pine tops surged
through the very soul of her, the diapason accompaniment to the
miserere of motherhood. Somewhere on this wild mountainside was Jack,
huddled from the wind in a cave, or wandering miserably through the
storm. Wrapped in soft luxury all her life, Mrs. Singleton Corey
shuddered as she looked forth through her silken veil, and saw what
Jack was enduring because she had never taught her son to love her;
because she had not taught him the lessons of love and trust and
obedience.

Of the girl who was lost she scarcely thought. Jack was out here in
the cold and the snow and the roaring wind; homeless because she had
driven him forth with her coldness; friendless because she had not
given him the precious friendship of a mother. Her own son, fearing
his mother so much that he was hiding away from her among these
terrible, mourning, roaring forests! Behind her veil, her delicately
powdered cheeks showed moist lines where the tears of hungry
motherhood slid swiftly down from eyes as brown as Jack's and as
direct in their gaze, but blurred now and filled with a terrible
yearning.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

GRIEF, AND HOPE THAT DIED HARD

During the months when she had hidden her shame in a sanitarium, Mrs.
Singleton Corey first learned how it felt to be unsatisfied with
herself. Had learned, to