i. His own seemed harsh and ugly by comparison.

"But I have never come so high before. It's glorious! This world of
silent snow and moonlight--and _you_. You're a child of the snow, I
swear. Let me come up--closer--to see your face--and touch your little
hand."

Her laughter answered him.

"Come on! A little higher. Here we're quite alone together."

"It's magnificent," he cried. "But why did you hide away so long? I've
looked and searched for you in vain ever since we skated--" he was going
to say "ten days ago," but the accurate memory of time had gone from
him; he was not sure whether it was days or years or minutes. His
thoughts of earth were scattered and confused.

"You looked for me in the wrong places," he heard her murmur just above
him. "You looked in places where I never go. Hotels and houses kill me.
I avoid them." She laughed--a fine, shrill, windy little laugh.

"I loathe them too--"

He stopped. The girl had suddenly come quite close. A breath of ice
passed through his very soul. She had touched him.

"But this awful cold!" he cried out, sharply, "this freezing cold that
takes me. The wind is rising; it's a wind of ice. Come, let us turn ...!"

But when he plunged forward to hold her, or at least to look, the girl
was gone again. And something in the way she stood there a few feet
beyond, and stared down into his eyes so steadfastly in silence, made
him shiver. The moonlight was behind her, but in some odd way he could
not focus sight upon her face, although so close. The gleam of eyes he
caught, but all the rest seemed white and snowy as though he looked
beyond her--out into space....

The sound of the church bell came up faintly from the valley far below,
and he counted the strokes--five. A sudden, curious weakness seized him
as he listened. Deep within it was, deadly yet somehow sweet, and hard
to resist. He felt like sinking down upon the snow and lying there....
They had been climbing for five hours.... It was, of course, the warning
of complete exhaustion.

With a great effort he fought and overcame it. It passed away as
suddenly as it came.

"We'll turn," he said with a decision he hardly felt. "It will be dawn
before we reach the village again. Come at once. It's time for home."

The sense of exhilaration had utterly left him. An emotion that was akin
to fear swept coldly through him. But her whispering answer turned it
instantly to terror--a terror that gripped him horribly and tu