hudder. He heard the canvas flap-flapping by Gloria's bed; above
him tossing boughs scraped and creaked.

One thing only seemed clear to him: the time had come when a man must
seek to hold himself in check, when he must not leap, when he must
strive with all the stubborn will in him to reserve judgment. His own
life's crisis had come to him, revealing itself with the blinding
swiftness of a flash of lightning. A step forward or back now would be
one step toward which his entire destiny, from the hour of birth until
now, had led him; there would be no retracing it; it would be final; and
everything--everything--was at stake. He must think; he must try to
understand all that Gloria had experienced; to see what impulses had
moved her; to make allowances for her; to come to read aright what lay
in her heart. He must see clearly into two human hearts! Task for the
gods! As though the wilderness about him were a colossal malevolent
entity endowed with the power to look into human breasts, it jeered at
him with its voice of the wind.

He had but half a mind to give to physical senses. Though the wind
howled all night long, he scarce was conscious of it; though the cold
increased, he did not know that he was cold before he had grown numb.
He had given to Gloria all of their bedding, save alone the one blanket
he had wrapped about him; he had kept on all his clothing, buttoned up
his coat, and forgotten that he was not warmly covered. Now he got up
and walked up and down; he made the fire blaze up; he sat huddled over
it until it burned down to a bed of glowing red coals.

Once or twice he heard Gloria stir restlessly upon her fir-bough bed.
But he did not speak. There was nothing to be said between them now;
they would wait until she had rested, until morning. Then there would be
no more delay. They would understand each other then as few men and
women had understood; there would be plain words and but few of them. He
grew impatient for morning and sat looking forward to its coming with a
face set and hard, growing as stern as death.

Gloria, exhausted, had gone to sleep, snuggled warmly into her blankets.
It was the wind that awoke her; she started wide awake, her heart in her
throat, startled by the flapping of the canvas at her head. She lay
still and looked up; the pines were black and swayed dismally; the wind
among them made shuddersome music; the cold began to drive through her
blankets, through her clothing. Her body