Again she walked at random through the streets, unheeding where she was. She knew that she had broken her compact with herself--broken it utterly. Of what avail now the long months during which she had not allowed herself to enter the street or the neighborhood where Helen lived? Of what avail that she had not allowed herself to listen to one word concerning them when Mr. Dexter stood ready to tell all? She had looked at them--looked at them voluntarily and long; had gone back to the church door to look at them, to look again at the face for a sight of which her whole heart hungered. She had broken her vow. In addition, the mist over her blind eyes was dissolved. He had never loved her; it had been but a passing fancy. It was best so. Yet, oh, how easy all the past now seemed, in spite of its loneliness, toil, and care! For _then_ she had believed that she was loved. She began to realize that until this moment she had never really given up her own will at all, but had held on through all to this inward belief, which had made her lonely life warm with its hidden secret light. She had thought herself noble, and she had been but selfish; she had thought herself self-controlled, and she had been following her own will; she had thought herself humble, and here she was, maddened by humiliated jealous pride. At last, worn out with weariness, she went homeward to the half-house as twilight fell. In the morning the ground was white with snow again, and the tumultuous winds of March were careering through the sky, whipping the sleet and hail before them as they flew along; the strange halcyon sunshine was gone, and a second winter upon them. And Anne felt that a winter such as she had never known before was in her heart also. CHAPTER XXX. "O eloquent and mightie Death! thou hast drawn together all the farre-stretched greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie, and ambition of men, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!"--SIR WALTER RALEIGH. A month passed. Anne saw nothing more, heard nothing more, but toiled on in her daily round. She taught and sang. She answered Miss Lois's letters and those of Père Michaux. There was no longer any danger in writing to Weston, and she smiled sadly as she thought of the blind, self-important days when she had believed otherwise. She now wrote to her friends there, and letters came in return. Mrs. Barstow's pages were filled with accounts of hospital work, for Donelson had been followed by the great blood-shedding of Shiloh, and the West was dotted with battle-fields. She had allowed herself no newspapers, lest she should come upon his name. But now she ordered one, and read it daily. What was it to her even if she should come upon his name? She must learn to bear it, so long as they trod the same earth. And one day she did come upon it; but it was merely the two-line announcement that he had returned to the front.