oor to the
woodshed, stepped out, and closed it behind her. The cold clutched at her
throat like a palpable hand of ice, and her first involuntary gasp set her
into a fit of coughing.

She sat down on the stump where kindlings were always split and opened her
gown wider. She noticed how fair and smooth the skin on her shoulders
still was and remembered that her husband had always been proud of her
pretty neck. She had worn a low-necked dress when he had told her he loved
her. That had been in the garden, into which she could now look as she sat
on the stump. She had been picking currants for tea, and he had gone out
to see her. The scene came up before her so vividly that she heard his
voice, and felt herself turn to him with the light grace of her girlhood
and cry again, in an ecstasy of surprised joy, "Oh, _Nathaniel!_"

A gust of wind whirled a handful of snow against her and some of it
settled on her bare shoulders. She watched it melt and felt the icy little
trickle with a curious aloofness. Suddenly she began to shiver, gripped by
a dreadful chill, which shook her like a strong hand. After that she was
very still again, the death-like cold penetrating deeper and deeper until
her breath came in constricted gasps. She did not stir until she heard the
front door bang to her husband's return. Then she rose with infinite
effort and struggled back into the kitchen. When he came in, she was
standing by the sink, fumbling idly with the dishes. Already her head was
whirling, and she scarcely knew what she was doing.

In the nightmare of horror which his wife's sudden sickness brought upon
him, old Mr. Prentiss felt that he could bear everything except the sight
and sound of his wife's struggles for breath. He hardly saw the neighbor
women who filled the house, taking advantage of this opportunity to
inspect the furniture with an eye to the auction which would follow the
removal of the old people to the city. He hardly heeded the doctor's
desperate attempts with all varieties of new-fangled scientific
contrivances to stay the hand of death. He hardly knew that his son had
come, and in his competent, prosperous way was managing everything for
him. He sat in one corner of the sick-room, and agonized over the
unconscious sick woman, fighting for every breath.

On the third day he was left alone with her, by some chance, and suddenly
the dreadful, heaving gasp was still. He sprang to the bedside, sick with
apprehension, but