wed. Seth's cigarette went out, and hung
dead from his bearded lips, while he stared gloomily into the blaze.
He sat with his back toward the front door. Claire, near a corner of
the big stone chimney, leaned forward, her head inclined to one side,
the cheek resting on her open hand, the elbow on her knee. Her eyes,
which had been lifted from their long gazing at the fire at the moment
she addressed her husband, were fixed on vacancy, looking past
Huntington toward the door that led out upon the veranda, where the
rising wind tossed little whirls of snow and dead leaves from the
flower garden. She was torturing herself with a conjured vision of a
wild, high place among snowbound rocks, in the midst of which a
slender figure was slowly sinking down, and a white and stricken face
was turned toward her. This was the vision that had become for her the
settled picture of Marion's fate, a picture that was burned into her
brain by many, many hours of imagining, day and night.

The wind was howling around the ranch house, wailing among the gables,
shrieking across the chimney top. It rattled at the door, as if to
fling it open with sudden violence. And what was that? A footstep on
the veranda? She shivered; it was only her shaken nerves again! Then
came another rattle at the door. It moved. It _was_ flung open. And
there was the figure of her dream, but strangely and fantastically
clad; and with a face that glowed, and lips that were parted in a
smile.

For a moment Claire did not move. Then slowly she lifted her head; her
eyes grew round and staring, her mouth opened. Seth caught the look;
it was one he had seen many times before.

"Claire!" he cried. "Stop that!"

His voice, perhaps, served to break the spell. Claire leaped to her
feet. And the next instant there was a voice from the doorway.

"Hello!" said Marion cheerily, in a "good evening" kind of tone, as
if she had returned from the post-office.

Huntington bounded from his chair, and whirled around with an
oath,--one oath surely that was forgiven him. But past him, with a
scream dashed Claire.

"Marion!" she shrieked.

"Marion!" bellowed Seth.

And then the two women were in each other's arms, and Seth grabbed one
of Marion's hands, and the air was filled with hysterical cries and
mighty, spluttered expletives. Then silence fell, while Claire and
Marion wept without restraint, and Huntington searched for his
handkerchief without finding it, and strode acros