d the door and went out
into the darkness.

Four times he tried to beat his way against the wind, to force a path
through the wet, heavy drifts. Four times, buffeted and almost spent, he
was driven back to the shelter of the veranda. The office clock struck
six, as he went inside the house to find a shivering servant sweeping
out the office.

"Get me some snowshoes," he ordered briefly. "The lights have burned all
night in Mr. Lorimer's cottage; I am afraid they may be ill and in need
of help. I thought I could get to them; but in this storm it is
impossible, unless I can have some shoes."

By some trick of the brain, anxious and impatient as he was, the Famine
Theme recurred to his mind, and the servant, coming back with the shoes,
found him singing it softly to himself. The words died away into
inarticulate humming, as Thayer bent over to fasten the straps. Then,
buttoning his coat closely and pulling his cap down over his eyes,
Thayer opened the door for the second time and went striding away across
the gray, tempestuous darkness which had shut down again impenetrably
between himself and those steady, ominous lights.

CHAPTER TWENTY

"It has all been a hideous mistake!"

Abruptly, defiantly Beatrix threw out the words at Thayer, as he
entered. Then her head dropped on her arms which rested on the table
before her.

Breathless from his struggle with the storm and astounded at her
greeting, Thayer halted just across the threshold and looked at her in
silence. The silence grew irksome to her. She changed the form of her
words.

"I couldn't help it. I have tried." The defiance in her voice suddenly
gave place to desperation. She pushed back her chair, rose and crossed
the room to the fire. There she turned and stood facing Thayer, her head
erect, her cheeks scarlet, her hands, palms downward, tightly clasped.
"I have tried my best and failed. It is a total, absolute failure," she
went on fiercely. "I know it, and you know it, too. You have watched it
coming on, growing and overpowering me. We may as well admit it; I made
a mistake when I married Sidney Lorimer."

Thayer met her eyes steadily, rallying all his forces to face her in
this new mood. This sudden change in her baffled his powers of
comprehension. Weakened and torn and shaken by her endless hours alone
in the whistling, roaring storm, listening moment by moment to the
hideous noises of delirium coming from the next room, the level nerves
of