not appear advisable
to show it. "There are so many things you apparently find it difficult
to forgive me--and we will let this one pass," he said. "Still, I
cannot help thinking that Colonel Barrington will have a good deal to
answer for."

Maud Barrington made no answer, but she was sensible of a respect which
appeared quite unwarranted for the dryly-spoken man, who, though she
guessed her words stung him now and then, bore them without wincing.
While she sat silent, shivering under her furs, darkness crept down.
The smoky cloud dropped lower, the horizon closed in as the gray
obscurity rolled up to meet them across a rapidly-narrowing strip of
snow. Then she could scarcely see the horses, and the muffled drumming
of their hoofs was lost in a doleful wail of wind. It also seemed to
her that the cold, which was already almost insupportable, suddenly
increased, as it not infrequently does in that country before the snow.
Then a white powder was whirled into her face, filling her eyes and
searing the skin, while the horses were plunging at a gallop through a
filmy haze, and Winston, whitened all over, leaned forward with lowered
head hurling hoarse encouragement at them. His voice reached her
fitfully through the roar of wind, until sight and hearing were lost
alike as the white haze closed about them, and it was not until the
wild gust had passed she heard him again. He was apparently shouting,
"Come nearer."

Maud Barrington was not sure whether she obeyed him or he seized and
drew her towards him. She, however, felt the furs piled high about her
neck and that there was an arm round her shoulder, and for a moment was
sensible of an almost overwhelming revulsion from the contact. She was
proud and very dainty, and fancied she knew what this man had been,
while now she was drawn in to his side, and felt her chilled blood
respond to the warmth of his body. Indeed she grew suddenly hot to the
neck, and felt that henceforward she could never forgive him or
herself, but the mood passed almost as swiftly, for again the awful
blast shrieked about them and she only remembered her companion's
humanity, as the differences of sex and character vanished under that
destroying cold. They were no longer man and woman, but only beings of
flesh and blood, clinging desperately to the life that was in them, for
the first rush of the Western snowstorm has more than a physical
effect, and man exposed to its fury loses all but h