l over a foot of snow. I thought we'd have an open
winter, too."

"Look out for them when they start in mild!"

"I was afraid this darned road would be tied up if I waited until
morning. I'm in real estate, and there's a deal on in my town I've got to
watch every minute...."

Even the talk between two slouch-hatted millhands, foreigners, failed at
the time to strike Janet as having any significance. They were discussing
with some heat the prospect of having their pay reduced by the fifty-four
hour law which was to come into effect on Monday. They denounced the mill
owners.

"They speed up the machine and make work harder," said one. "I think we
goin' to have a strike sure."

"Bad sisson too to have strike," replied the second pessimistically. "It
will be cold winter, now."

Across the black square of the window drifted the stray lights of the
countryside, and from time to time, when the train stopped, she gazed
out, unheeding, at the figures moving along the dim station platforms.
Suddenly, without premeditation or effort, she began to live over again
the day, beginning with the wonders, half revealed, half hidden, of that
journey through the whiteness to Boston.... Awakened, listening, she
heard beating louder and louder on the shores of consciousness the waves
of the storm which had swept her away--waves like crashing chords of
music. She breathed deeply, she turned her face to the window, seeming to
behold reflected there, as in a crystal, all her experiences, little and
great, great and little. She was seated once more leaning back in the
corner of the carriage on her way to the station, she felt Ditmar's hand
working in her own, and she heard his voice pleading forgiveness--for
her silence alarmed him. And she heard herself saying:--"It was my fault
as much as yours."

And his vehement reply:--"It wasn't anybody's fault--it was natural, it
was wonderful, Janet. I can't bear to see you sad."

To see her sad! Twice, during the afternoon and evening, he had spoken
those words--or was it three times? Was there a time she had forgotten?
And each time she had answered: "I'm not sad." What she had felt indeed
was not sadness,--but how could she describe it to him when she herself
was amazed and dwarfed by it? Could he not feel it, too? Were men so
different?... In the cab his solicitation, his tenderness were only to be
compared with his bewilderment, his apparent awe of the feeling he
himself had raised up in h