n the circle with an open luminous eye, as
who should say he had not slept.

It was all very cheerful within, but outside the wind still blared
mournfully. Once more Dundas was sorry that he had declined the
invitation to remain, and it was with a somewhat tentative intention
that he made a motion to return to the hotel. But his host seemed
to regard his resolution as final, and rose with a regret, not an
insistence. The two women stared in silent amazement at the mere idea
of his camping out, as it were, in the old hotel. The ascendency of
masculine government here, notwithstanding Roxby's assertion that
Eve was made of Adam's backbone, was very apparent in their mute
acquiescence and the alacrity with which they began to collect various
articles, according to his directions, to make the stranger's stay more
comfortable.

"Em'ry kin go along an' holp," he said, heartlessly; for poor Emory's
joy in perceiving that the guest was not a fixture, and that his
presence was not to be an embargo on any word between himself and
Millicent during the entire evening, was pitiably manifest. But the
situation was still not without its comforts, since Dundas was to go
too. Hence he was not poor company when once in the saddle, and was
civil to a degree of which his former dismayed surliness had given no
promise.

Night had become a definite element. The twilight had fled. Above their
heads, as they galloped through the dank woods, the bare boughs of the
trees clashed together--so high above their heads that to the town
man, unaccustomed to these great growths, the sound seemed not of the
vicinage, but unfamiliar, uncanny, and more than once he checked his
horse to listen. As they approached the mountain's verge and overlooked
the valley and beheld the sky, the sense of the predominance of darkness
was redoubled. The ranges gloomed against the clearer spaces, but a
cloud, deep gray with curling white edges, was coming up from the
west, with an invisible convoy of vague films, beneath which the stars,
glimmering white points, disappeared one by one. The swift motion of
this aerial fleet sailing with the wind might be inferred from the
seemingly hurried pace of the moon making hard for the west. Still
bright was the illumined segment, but despite its glitter the shadowy
space of the full disk was distinctly visible, its dusky field spangled
with myriads of minute, dully golden points. Down, down it took its
way in haste--in disorder