yed in despair and agony of mind, and the prayer
carried on the wild wings of the night brought a fulfilment with it.
Not in vain were her tears and supplications, for even now the
deliverer delved among

"The dust and awful treasures of the dead,"

and even now the light of her happiness was breaking on her tortured
night as the cold gleams of the Christmas morning were breaking over
the fury of the storm without.

And then, chilled and numb in body and mind, she crept into her bed
again and at last lost herself in sleep.

By half-past nine o'clock, when Ida came down to breakfast, the gale
had utterly gone, though its footprints were visible enough in
shattered trees, unthatched stacks, and ivy torn in knotty sheets from
the old walls it clothed. It would have been difficult to recognise in
the cold and stately lady who stood at the dining-room window, noting
the havoc and waiting for her father to come in, the lovely,
passionate, dishevelled woman who some few hours before had thrown
herself upon her knees praying to God for the succour she could not
win from man. Women, like nature, have many moods and many aspects to
express them. The hot fit had passed, and the cold fit was on her now.
Her face, except for the dark hollows round the eyes, was white as
winter, and her heart was cold as winter's ice.

Presently her father came in.

"What a gale," he said, "what a gale! Upon my word I began to think
that the old place was coming down about our ears, and the wreck among
the trees is dreadful. I don't think there can have been such a wind
since the time of King Charles I., when the top of the tower was blown
right off the church. You remember I was showing you the entry about
it in the registers the other day, the one signed by the parson and
old Sir James de la Molle. The boy who has just come up with the
letters tells me he hears that poor old Mrs. Massey's summer-house on
the top of Dead Man's Mount has been blown away, which is a good
riddance for Colonel Quaritch. Why, what's the matter with you, dear?
How pale you look!"

"The gale kept me awake. I got very little sleep," answered Ida.

"And no wonder. Well, my love, you haven't wished me a merry Christmas
yet. Goodness knows we want one badly enough. There has not been much
merriment at Honham of late years."

"A merry Christmas to you, father," she said.

"Thank you, Ida, the same to you; you have got most of your
Christmases befor