The frost began to break up a little on the eighth day, or rather it was not the frost that broke up, but the sky that cleared. In the evening instead of the heavy gray there came a break which the sky looked through, and in it a star or two, which somehow changed altogether the aspect of affairs. That evening, as she stood looking out at the break so welcome to every-body, but which she was not so sure of welcoming as other people were, Lily felt the question again stir, like a bird in its nest, in the hushed happiness of her heart. In the morning, when she looked out upon a world that had again become light, with blue overhead, and a faint promise of sun, and no snow falling, it came back more strongly, this time like a secret ache. The women and Dougal and Sandy and even the ponies were full of delight in the end of the storm. “What a bonnie morning!” they shouted to each other, waking Lily from her sleep. A bonnie morning! There was color again on the hills and color in the sky. The distance was no longer shut out, as by a door, by the heavy firmament: it was remote, it was full of air, it led away into the world, into worlds unseen. As Lily gazed a golden ray came out of it and struck along the snow in a fine line. Oh, it was bonnie! as they called to each other in the yard, as Rory snorted in his stable, and all the chickens cackled, gathering about Katrin’s feet. The snow was over! The storm was over! In a little while the whiteness would disappear and the moor would be green again. “What are we going to do?” All nature seemed to ask the question. “I wish,” said Ronald, “those fowls would cease their rejoicings about the end of the snow. I wish the snow could have lasted another fortnight, Lily; though perhaps I should not say that, for I could not have taken advantage of it. I should need to have invented some means of getting away.” “Because you were tired of it, Ronald?” she said, with a smile; but the smile was not so bright as it had been. It was not Lily’s snow-smile, all light and radiance; it was one into which the question had come, a little wistful, a little anxious. Ronald saw, and his heart grieved at the change. “That’s the likely reason!” he said, with a laugh; “but, oh, Lily, my bonnie love, here is the Parliament House all astir again, the judges sitting, and all the work begun.” “Well,” she said, that smile of hers shooting out a pure beam of fire upon him, “I am ready, Ronald, I am ready, too.” “Ready to speed the parting husband, and to wish me good luck?” he said with a faint quiver in his voice. He was not a coward by nature, but Ronald this time was afraid. He had not forgotten the question: “What are we going to do?” which had been expressed in every line of Lily’s face, in every tone of her voice, before the evening of the marriage. He knew it had come again, but he did not know how he was to meet it. He plunged into the inevitable conflict with his heart in his mouth.