ke his can always wait; and waiting only makes it colder
and harder; there is never heat enough in it to melt its merciless ice.

A sudden darkening of the sky sent her into the house at last, and even
then she did not return to her proper place by his side. She did not
even look at him, but spoke to the judge who was just leaving the great
room to go to the cabin which he used as his bedroom and office. Ruth
begged him not to start out, saying that the storm seemed so near that
it might break before he could reach the cabin. But he went on with a
smiling shake of his head, after a glance at the dark clouds which were
gathering blackly on the other side of the river behind the spectral
cottonwoods, now bare of leaves and ghostly white.

"Did David have to go through the big deadening, William?" she asked
suddenly, speaking over her shoulder, without leaving her anxious post
in the doorway, though the wind was whipping her skirts about her
slender figure and loosing her long, black hair. "I wish he would come.
He should be back by this time. I am afraid--the great trees fall so in
a storm. Father Orin and the doctor, too, often ride through there. And
it is such a dangerous place when the wind blows. Oh!" with a cry of
relief, "there's David now! Here he comes. David, David dear--I am so
glad!"

She sprang down the steps and ran to meet the boy. The rush of the
rising storm kept from hearing William Pressley's call for her to come
back. He stood still for a moment, hesitating, and then, seeing that she
flew on, he followed and overtook her just as she reached David, who was
getting down from the pony and taking the empty bag from the saddle. The
wind was now very violent, and the darkened air was thick with the dead
leaves of the forest swirling into the river which was already lashed
into waves and dashing against the shore. Waterfowl flew landward with
frightened cries; a low, dark cloud was being drawn up the stream over
the ashen face of the water--a strange, thick, terrible black curtain,
shaken by the tempest and bordered by the lightning--pressed onward by
the resistless powers of the air.

There was a lull just as William Pressley reached Ruth's side. It was
one of those tense spaces which are among the greatest terrors of a
storm by reason of their suddenness, their stillness, and their
suspense. He grasped her hand, and she clung to his as she would have
clung to anything that she chanced to touch in her fri