e brain. All were clear--clear and unfettered in
that marvellous air and sunlight, washed clean by the swift pulse of
life. It was a wonderful world! A glorious world! He was almost on the
point of crying aloud his discovery.

The thrill grew in him as he found time now to look about. Under him the
broad, steel runners of the sledge made a cold, creaking sound as they
slipped over the snow that lay on the ice of the lake; he heard the
swift _tap_, _tap_, _tap_ of the dogs' feet, their panting breath that
was almost like laughter, low throat whines, and the steady swish of the
snow shoes ahead. Beyond those sounds a vast silence encompassed him. He
looked out into it, east and west to the dark rims of forest, north and
south over the distance of that diamond-sprinkled _tundra_ of unbroken
white. He drew out his pipe, loaded it with tobacco, and began to smoke.
The bitterness of the weed was gone. It was delicious. He puffed
luxuriously. And then, suddenly, as he looked at the purplish bulwarks
of the forest, his mind swept back. For the first time since that night
many months ago he thought of the Woman--the Golden Goddess--without a
red-hot fire in his brain. He thought of her coolly. This new world was
already giving back to him a power of analysis, a perspective, a
healthier conception of truths and measurements. What a horrible blot
they had made in his life--that man and that woman! What a foul trick
they had played him! What filth they had wallowed in! And he--he had
thought her the most beautiful creature in the world, an angel, a thing
to be worshipped. He laughed, almost without sound, his teeth biting
hard on the stem of his pipe. And the world he was looking upon laughed;
the snow diamonds, lying thickly as dust, laughed; there was laughter in
the sun, the warmth of chuckling humour in those glowing walls of
forest, laughter in the blue sky above.

His hands gripped hard.

In this world he knew there could not be another woman such as she.
Here, in all this emptiness and glory, her shallow soul would have
shrieked in agony; she would have shrivelled up and died. It was too
clean. Too white. Too pure. It would have frightened her, tortured her.
She could not have found the poison she required to give her life. Her
unclean desires would have driven her mad. So he arraigned her,
terribly, without malice, and without pity. And then, like the quieting
touch of a gentle hand in his brain, came the thought of the o