, had denounced in public, with
every expression of aversion and disgust, as a coward.

She had not been able to escape from the sound of his name. At the
dinner-table, in the ballroom--everywhere--his deeds came under
discussion and comment; and that in one key--admiration. Moreover,
certain newspaper men began to rake up two or three of his doings during
the former war in the same wild country, causing Violet Courtland's eyes
to open very wide as she recalled the scene by the mere, and how she had
driven this very man from her as a coward.

Two years ago that very day! Strange that exactly the same conditions
should prevail: the same hard frost; the same silver sparkle on the bare
trees; even the same Christmas Eve bells practising their carillon at
intervals. A wave of association it might have been that moved Violet
to take her skates, and start for the frozen mere. She was alone now,
but she would be sure to find somebody there--the rector's girls
perhaps, and a few others.

She has judged correctly. The surface of Courtland Mere is covered with
a smooth and glassy sheet. The ring of the skates is melodious upon the
air, and gliding forms dart hither and thither: but these are few--only
four, in fact--for the mere is not yet thrown open, and the ice,
undulating freely, here and there with an ominous crack, is none too
safe even for these four.

"Come back, Violet," cries a girl's clear voice. "You're too far out.
It's awfully thin there. Do you hear?"--as a couple of warning cracks
dart along the heaving surface.

"Yes, do come back, Miss Courtland," echoes the only man in the party.
"You're near the spring hole. Do come back. It's beastly dangerous."

Violet Courtland throws back her head and laughs defiantly, circling
ever nearer to the fatal spot. One, seeing but unseen, amid the
undergrowth beneath the black pines, takes in the picture--the warm kiss
of the frosty air upon the flower-like face, framed so seductively in
its winter furs; the curve of the red lips, laughing mischievously; the
sparkle in the large clear eyes, as the answer is shrilled back--

"Not for me. I'm light enough to go over even the spring hole itself.
Oh--h--!"

For, with these words, the ice wave beneath her gliding feet rises and
falls like a sheet in the breeze. A crack, and then another--then a
horrid shattering sound as of shivered glass. The water, forced through
the cracks, spurts upward in blade-like lines,