gone
from her life as a flame goes from an extinguished candle.

She knelt beside him, and with no knowledge of effort turned him over
and lifted his head and shoulders into her arms. His eyes were closed,
his face expressionless, his arms dropped limply to his side. At first
she dared not dream but that the cold had already taken away his life.
The dread Spirit of the North had lain in ambush for him a long time,
but it had conquered him at last.

They made an unearthly picture,--these two so silent in the drifts.
Endless about them lay the snow; the winter forest was deep in its
eternal silence, the little spruce trees stood patient and inert and
queer, under their heavy loads of snow. Never a voice in all the
wastes, never a tear of pity or a stretching hand of mercy,--only
the cold, only the silence, only the dread solitude of a land
untamed,--the unconquerable wild. Yet her sorrow, her ineffable
despair left no room for resentment against this dreadful land. It
was only a lost fight in an eternal war; only a little incident in
the vast and inscrutable schemes of a remorseless Nature.

She knew life now, this girl of cities. She knew that in her past life
she had never really lived: she had only moved in a gentle dream that an
artificial civilization had made possible. The gayeties, the culture,
the luxuries and the fashions that had seemed so real and so essential
before were revealed in their true light, only as dreams that would
pass: deep in them she had never heard the crash of armor in the
battlefields without her bower. But she knew now. She saw life as it
was, stark and cruel, remorseless, pitiless to the weak, treacherous to
the strong, ever waging war against all creatures that dwelt upon the
earth.

Yet so easily could it have been redeemed! If this man were standing
strong beside her, life would be nothing to fear, nothing to appall her
spirit. All the ancient persecutions of the elements, all the pitfalls
of life and the exigencies of fortune could never bow their heads.
Instead they would know high adventure and the exhilaration of battle;
even if at the day's end they should go down into death, it would be
with unbroken spirits and brave hearts.

But she couldn't stand alone! She needed the touch of his hand, his
shoulder against hers, the communion of his spirit and his strength.
Life was an appalling thing to face alone! There was no joy now in the
punishing cold and the wastes of