snowy masses
over the black seams of the ravines; and the moon's light rested on them
for an instant. Without thought or aim he began to climb. The ascent was
perilous at any hour to any foot save that of a mountaineer. The
exertion and the watchfulness banished the vision, and his liberated
mind turned to Greta. What was life itself now without Greta's love?
Nothing but a succession of days. She was the savior of his outcast
state; she was his life's spring, whence the waters of content might
flow. And a flood of emotion came over him, and in his heart he blessed
her. It was then that on that gaunt headland he seemed to see her at his
side. But between them, and dividing them, stalked the spectre of
himself.

All to the east was dense gloom, save where the pulsating red of the
smelting house burned in the distance. With no rest for his foot, Paul
walked in the direction of the light, and the shadow of his face walked
with him. As the wind went by him it whistled in his ear, and it sounded
in that solitude like the low cry of the thing at his side.

Old Laird Fisher was at his work of wheeling the refuse of the ore from
the mouth of the furnace, and shooting it down the bank. The glow of the
hot stone in the iron barrow that he trundled was reflected in sharp
white lights on his wrinkled face.

"Ista theer, Mister Paul?" he said, catching his breath and coughing
amid the smoke, and shouting between the gusts of wind.

The slow beat of the engine and the clank of the chain of the cage in
the shaft deadened the wind's shrill whistle. The smoke from the bank
shot up and swirled away like a long flight of swallows.

Standing there, the vision troubled him no longer. It had been merely a
waking phantasy, bred of what Greta said she saw in the snow, and
heightened by the shock to his nerves caused by his mother's departure.
The sight of Matthew helped to beat it off. His submissive face was the
sign of his broken spirit. A tempest had torn up his only hold on the
earth. He was but a poor naked trunk flung on the ground, without power
of growth or grip of the soil. He was old and he had no hope. Yet he
lived on and worked submissively. Paul's own case was different. Destiny
had dashed him in unknown seas against unseen rocks. But he was young,
he had the power of life, and the stimulus of love. Yet here he was, the
prey to an idle fancy, tortured by an agony of fear.

"Good-night to you, Matthew!" he shouted cheerily abo