She dwelt long on the moonshiner’s story. She was heart-sore for the hungry idiot, filching from the hogs,—and what forlorn fate had he found at last! She drew her shawl closer about her head, and shivered more with her fears than with the wind. She was very tired; not in body, for she was strong and well, but in mind and heart and life. Somehow, she felt as if she were near the end,—surely there was not enough vitality of hope to sustain her further,—the frequent illusion of sturdy youth, with the long stretches of weary years ahead. There was even a certain relaxation of Mink’s tyrannous hold upon her thoughts. It was not that she cared for him less, but she had pondered so long upon him that her imagination was numb; she had beggared her invention. She could no more project scenes where he walked with all those gentler attributes with which her affection, despite the persistent contradictions of her subtler discernment, had invested him. She could no longer harass herself with doubts of his state of mind, with devising troublous reasons why he had avoided her, with fears of harm and grief menacing him. She had revolted at last from the thrall of these arid unrealities. She felt, in a sort of grief for herself, that they were but poor delusions that occupied her. He must come, and come soon, her heart insistently said. And yet so tired was her heart that she felt in a sort of dismay that were he here to-night there would be no wild thrill of ecstasy in her pulses, no trembling joys. All that she had suffered—despair, and frantic hope that was hardly less poignant, and keen anxieties, and a stress of care—had made apathy, quiet, rest, nullity, the grave, seem dearer than aught the earth could promise. “He oughter hev kem afore,” she said to herself, in weary deprecation. And then she thought that perhaps now, since he was at liberty again, he was happy with Elvira, and she experienced another pang to know that she was not jealous. The clouds had obscured the few stars. The wind was flagging; the smoke grew denser; the forest flames emitted only a dull red glow; the file of peaks that they had conjured from the blackness of night was lost again in the deepening gloom. She was roused suddenly to the fact that it was intensely quiet in-doors. She could even hear the sound of the fire in the deep chimney-place; it was “treadin’ snow,” the noise being very similar to the crunch of a footfall on a frozen crust. She rose, looking upward and holding her hand to the skies; the glow from within fell upon her fair face, half hooded in the shawl, and upon her pensive eyes. Flakes were falling; now, no more; and again she felt the faint touch in her palm.