very yard of the way,
and she wondered how she would be able to carry her child later, if
already he laid such a burden on her.... A fresh wind had sprung up,
scattering the rain and blowing down keenly from the mountain. Presently
the clouds lowered again, and a few white darts struck her in the face:
it was the first snow falling over Hamblin. The roofs of the lonely
village were only half a mile ahead, and she was resolved to push beyond
it, and try to reach the Mountain that night. She had no clear plan of
action, except that, once in the settlement, she meant to look for Liff
Hyatt, and get him to take her to her mother. She herself had been
born as her own baby was going to be born; and whatever her mother's
subsequent life had been, she could hardly help remembering the past,
and receiving a daughter who was facing the trouble she had known.

Suddenly the deadly faintness came over her once more and she sat down
on the bank and leaned her head against a tree-trunk. The long road and
the cloudy landscape vanished from her eyes, and for a time she seemed
to be circling about in some terrible wheeling darkness. Then that too
faded.

She opened her eyes, and saw a buggy drawn up beside her, and a man
who had jumped down from it and was gazing at her with a puzzled face.
Slowly consciousness came back, and she saw that the man was Liff Hyatt.

She was dimly aware that he was asking her something, and she looked at
him in silence, trying to find strength to speak. At length her voice
stirred in her throat, and she said in a whisper: "I'm going up the
Mountain."

"Up the Mountain?" he repeated, drawing aside a little; and as he
moved she saw behind him, in the buggy, a heavily coated figure with a
familiar pink face and gold spectacles on the bridge of a Grecian nose.

"Charity! What on earth are you doing here?" Mr. Miles exclaimed,
throwing the reins on the horse's back and scrambling down from the
buggy.

She lifted her heavy eyes to his. "I'm going to see my mother."

The two men glanced at each other, and for a moment neither of them
spoke.

Then Mr. Miles said: "You look ill, my dear, and it's a long way. Do you
think it's wise?"

Charity stood up. "I've got to go to her."

A vague mirthless grin contracted Liff Hyatt's face, and Mr. Miles again
spoke uncertainly. "You know, then--you'd been told?"

She stared at him. "I don't know what you mean. I want to go to her."

Mr. Miles was examining her th