he convulsive
gestures of half-controlled passion.

The reason she did not pray was that she believed that she could only
pray when she was "good," and after falling on her knees she became
aware that goodness, as she understood it, was not in her just then, nor
did she even desire it. The giving vent to her misery in half-audible
whispers followed involuntarily on her intention to pray. She knew not
why she thus poured out her heart; she hardly realised what she said or
wished to say; yet, because some expression of her helpless need was
necessary, and because, through fear and a rugged sense of her own evil,
she sedulously averted her mind from the thought of God, her action had,
more than anything else, the semblance of an invocation to the dead man
to arise and save her, and take vengeance on her enemy.

Daylight was in the room. The girl had knelt at first upright; then, as
her passion seemed to avail nothing, but only to weary her, she sank
back, sitting on her feet, buried her locked hands deeply in her lap,
and with head bowed over them, continued to stab the air with short,
almost inaudible, complaints. The dead man lay still. The dog, after
standing long in subdued silence, came and with his tongue softly lapped
some of the snow-water from her hair.

After that, she got up and went with him back into the kitchen, and lit
the fire, and cooked food, and the day waned.

There is never in Nature that purpose to thwart which man in his
peevishness is apt to attribute to her. Just because he desired so much
that the winter should hold off a few days longer, Bates, on seeing the
snow falling from the white opaque sky, took for granted that the
downfall would continue and the ice upon the lake increase. Instead of
that, the snow stopped falling at twilight without apparent cause, and
night set in more mildly.

Darkness fell upon the place, as darkness can only fall upon solitudes,
with a lonesome dreariness that seemed to touch and press. Night is not
always dark, but with this night came darkness. There was no star nor
glimmer of light; the pine-clad hills ceased to have form; the water in
the lake was lost to all sense but that of hearing; and upon nearer
objects the thinly sprinkled snow bestowed no distinctness of outline,
but only a weird show of whitish shapes. The water gave forth fitful
sobs. At intervals there were sounds round the house, as of stealthy
feet, or of quick pattering feet, or of trailing ga