For an hour the girl worked in the lonely house. She built a roaring fire, carried in a store of wood, fed and cheered the poor soul on her hard bed, and then turned her face toward Point of Pines. Almost childishly she dallied by the way, trying to set her feet in the marks she had made on the way up. So interested did she become in this that it made her _almost_ forget that queer, sad feeling in her heart. "I’ll make a new path," she decided, and that caused her to think of Tom Gavot and Alton and—the Look! Then she forgot all else and drifted far away. She was unhappy as the young know unhappiness; no perspective, no comparison. Never had there been such a case as hers! Never had any one suffered as she was suffering because no one had ever had the same reason! When Donelle recalled herself, she found that she was on the highway several miles beyond Point of Fines. The sun was sloping down, the west was golden, and a solemn stillness, almost deathly, pervaded space. There was a tall cross close beside Donelle. Black it rose from the unsullied snow, white tipped it was and shining against the glowing sky. Beneath it someone had evidently knelt, for the crust of the snow was broken. What meaning all this had for Donelle, who could tell? But the confusion and hurt of the last few hours clutched at her heart, and she who had never been urged by Jo Morey to consider religion in any form went slowly to the cross and sank down! The teachings of St. Michael’s claimed her, the memory of little Sister Mary with the lost look clung to her; then a peace entered into her soul. "No one could hurt me there," she sobbed. "No one could look at me—with that look." Then, at the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed. [Illustration: "At the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed."] Presently she raised her face; it was calm and pale. There was a round teardrop on her cheek that had not fallen with the others. She turned and there by the roadside stood Norval. How long he had been there he could hardly have told himself. When he had gone to the white house for his noon-day meal, Jo had told him, quite inconsequently, of Donelle’s errand and he had followed her, for what reason God only knew. "Donelle!" he said, "Donelle!" The terrible look in his eyes was gone, gone was the mocking smile of the night before. Pity, divine pity, moved him. "Donelle!" "Yes, Mr. Richard Alton." The poor girl strove to be her teasing self, but her lips trembled and suddenly a strange, almost an awful, dignity and detachment overcame her. Standing with clasped hands, in her nun-like garb, she seemed to have taken farewell of the world that women crave. "What are you doing, Donelle, by that cross?" Norval did not draw near, and a distance of several feet separated them. "Thinking and praying." "Thinking what? And praying for what?"