a
hooded waterproof cloak, and slipped out of the house unperceived. The
rain was falling steadily along the descending trail where she walked,
but beyond, scarcely a mile across the chasm, the wintry distance began
to confuse her brain with the inextricable swarming of snow. Hurrying
down with feverish excitement, she at last came in sight of the arching
granite portals of their domain. But her first glance through the
gateway showed it closed as if with a white portcullis. Kate remembered
that the trail began to ascend beyond the arch, and knew that what she
saw was only the mountain side she had partly climbed this morning. But
the snow had already crept down its flank, and the exit by trail was
practically closed. Breathlessly making her way back to the highest part
of the plateau--the cliff behind the house that here descended abruptly
to the rain-dimmed valley--she gazed at the dizzy depths in vain for
some undiscovered or forgotten trail along its face. But a single glance
convinced her of its inaccessibility. The gateway was indeed their only
outlet to the plain below. She looked back at the falling snow beyond
until she fancied she could see in the crossing and recrossing lines
the moving meshes of a fateful web woven around them by viewless but
inexorable fingers.

Half frightened, she was turning away, when she perceived, a few paces
distant, the figure of the stranger, "Ned," also apparently absorbed
in the gloomy prospect. He was wrapped in the clinging folds of a black
serape braided with silver; the broad flap of a slouch hat beaten back
by the wind exposed the dark, glistening curls on his white forehead. He
was certainly very handsome and picturesque, and that apparently without
effort or consciousness. Neither was there anything in his costume or
appearance inconsistent with his surroundings, or, even with what Kate
could judge were his habits or position. Nevertheless, she instantly
decided that he was TOO handsome and too picturesque, without suspecting
that her ideas of the limits of masculine beauty were merely personal
experience.

As he turned away from the cliff they were brought face to face. "It
doesn't look very encouraging over there," he said quietly, as if the
inevitableness of the situation had relieved him of his previous shyness
and effort; "it's even worse than I expected. The snow must have begun
there last night, and it looks as if it meant to stay." He stopped for a
moment, and th