here is of deficient imagination in them."

"There isn't," Lawrence said quietly; "they and the ocean are
testimonials to the real potential power of an otherwise very faulty
artist."

Left alone, Claire worked furiously at setting the house to rights. Her
nervous state led her to throw herself into the work with an energy that
kept her from thinking. She sought for things to do with the desperation
of a person whose only escape from the furies that followed him is utter
physical exhaustion. When the cabin had been arranged and rearranged
until there was no possible excuse for further effort, she took her
heavy man's coat from its place and stepped out upon the snow-covered
plateau before the house.

Along its edges the lake shone milk-white in the sun, while farther out
the ice glinted a clear, watery blue that made a gleaming jewel set in
the sparkling snow around it. She stood gazing across the ice to the
forest beyond. Its still beauty crept over her, and she breathed deeply
of the cold, crisp air. Her head ached dully, and her chest felt tight
as though trying to expand beyond its limit to make room for the trouble
that filled her being. After standing motionless for a few moments, she
started briskly across the snow toward the far side of the lake. She
walked carefully over the ice and into the trees beyond. In her mind was
one thought, to escape--but escape from what? From herself, she
answered, and then suddenly, with a panicky bursting of the tension, she
thought that is done only through death.

She stopped and let the word "death" fill her mind, as a word sometimes
does, growing and growing until its increasing weight oppresses the
brain with a sense of physical pressure. "Death"--is it an escape? She
tried to imagine herself dead, and failed. She could find no adequate
image to express oblivion, and she gave up trying, while she began to
wonder if she actually were immortal, and if she were, what would she
say to herself beyond the edge of life?

She thought of herself as standing, naked of soul, unbodied, in some far
etherealized atmosphere, and she shuddered. "I would still be Claire,
loving these two men and fearing a third." Tears crept down her cheeks.
No, she did not want to be immortal and have no escape from herself.

If she would only be able to endure the months still remaining before
she got home, then everything would be settled. But would it? Did she
want Lawrence to go out of her life, di