mile or so, and then
Riatt stopped the horse.

"We've got to go back, Miss Fenimer," he said firmly.

"Oh, please not, Mr. Riatt; we are almost there, and," she added with a
fine sense of filial obligation, "I really feel I must do as my father
asked me."

Riatt felt inclined to point out that she, with her muff held up to her
face, was not making the greatest sacrifice to the ideal of duty.

"Have you any very clear idea where your house is?" he asked. His tone
was not flattering, and Christine was quick to feel it.

"Do I know where I live five months of the year?" she returned. "Of
course I do. It's just over this next hill."

The afternoon was turning out so perversely that she would hardly have
been surprised to find that the house had disappeared from its accustomed
place. But as they came over the crest, there it was, in a hollow between
two hills, looking as summer houses do in winter, like a forlorn toy left
out in the snow.

"But it's shut up," said Riatt. "There's no one in it."

"I have the keys to the back door."

He touched the horse for the first time with the whip, and they went
jingling down the slope, in between the almost completely buried
gateposts, and drew up before the kitchen door.

Miss Fenimer kicked her feet free from the rugs, jumped out, and from the
recesses of her muff produced a key which she inserted in the lock.

"Now you won't be long, will you?" said Riatt, with more of command than
persuasion in his tone.

It was a principle of life on the part of Christine that she never
allowed any man to bully her; or perhaps, it would be more nearly just to
say that she never intended to allow any man to do so until she herself
became persuaded that he could, and with this object she always made the
process look as difficult and dangerous as possible at the very
beginning.

She looked back at him and smiled with irritating calm.

"I shall be just as long as is necessary," she replied, and so saying,
she turned, or rather attempted to turn, the key.

But disuse, or cold, or her own lack of strength prevented and she was
presently reduced to asking Riatt to help her. He did not volunteer his
assistance. She had definitely and directly to ask for it. Then he was
friendliness itself.

"Just stand by the horse's head, will you?" he said, and when he saw
her stationed there, he sprang out, and with an almost insulting ease
opened the door.

Just as he did so, however, a gust of w