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to his bed furniture to bring him out in a light blaze. She experienced a great revulsion of relief when she began to recognize the mysterious sound that had attracted her attention. It was sleet--no longer slyly touching the glass here and there, but dashing with all the force of the wind in tinkling showers against it. The sound had its chilly influence even before the warm fire. Suddenly the shock of the bell, jangling out its summons in the dark cold hall! Again Lillian's composed, swift exit in response. Crystal had answered, and here was Mr. Julian Bayne at the hotel and on the wire. Could he come to her at once, at her utmost need, and by the first train? Oh! (at last a poignant cadence of pain) there was no train? Crystal was not on a railroad at all? (A pause of silent, listening expectancy, then the keen vibration of renewed hope.) Oh, could he? Could he really drive across country? But wasn't it too far? Oh, a fast horse? Fifty miles? But weren't the roads dreadful? "Oh--oh, Gladys, he has rung off! He was in such a hurry I could hardly understand him. I could hear him calling out his orders in the hotel office to have his horse harnessed, while he was talking to me." The effort was triumphantly made, and Julian Bayne was coming, but as she returned from the chill hall to the illumined, warm room the tinkle of ice on the window-pane caught her attention for the first time. "Snow?" she said, appalled; then, listening a moment: "And there is sleet! I wonder if it is more than a flurry." She ran to the window, but, already frozen, the sash refused to rise. She pressed her cheek to the pane and beheld aghast a ghostly and sheeted world, so fast had the snowflakes fallen, and still the sleet sent its crystal fusillade against the glass. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "Julian Bayne can never come safely through this ice storm and up the mountain. Listen--listen! It is hailing now! Oh, he will break his neck! Remember what a wild and savage thing it is that Julian Bayne calls a fast horse! He will lose his way in the woods and freeze to death; and after all, it is perhaps for nothing. I can wait--I can wait--time is not _so_ essential. Oh, I will postpone his coming! I will call him up again! Run, Gladys, ring the bell! Call up Long Distance! I can't get there quickly enough." And indeed it seemed some feeble old woman hirpling through the shadows, rather than the vigorous commanding presence of a few minutes ag
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