Through the white night his hands reached for her, found her, drew her close. The moment was too masterful for him to mould. He became, instead, plastic in its white and stealthy grasp. "I couldn't stay," he said, "and see you give yourself to Hartley." She raised her hands to his shoulders. He barely caught her whisper because of the sly communicativeness of the snow. "I am glad, but why didn't you say so then?" The intoxication faded. The enterprise ahead gave to their joy a fugitive quality. Moreover, with her very surrender came to him a great misgiving. "But you and Hartley? I've watched. It's been forced on me." "Then you have misunderstood," she answered. "You put me too completely out of your life after our quarrel. That was about Hartley. You were too jealous, but it was my fault." "Hartley," he asked, "spoke to you about that time?" "Yes, and I told him he was a very dear friend, and he was kind enough to accept that and not to go away." His measure of the widening of the rift between them made her more precious because of its affectionate human quality. She had been kinder to Graham, more mysterious about him, to draw Bobby back. Yet ever since his arrival at the Cedars, Graham had assumed toward Katherine an attitude scarcely to be limited by friendship. He had done what he had in Bobby's service clearly enough for her sake. For a long time past, indeed, in speaking of her Graham always seemed to discuss the woman he expected to marry. "You are quite sure," he asked, puzzled, "that Hartley understood?" "Why do you ask? He has shown how good a friend he is." "He has always made me think," Bobby said, "that he had your love. You're sure he guessed that you cared for me?" In that place, at that moment, there was a tragic colour to her coquetry. "I think every one must have guessed it except you, Bobby." He raised her head and touched her lips. Her lips were as cold as the caresses of the drifting snowflakes. "We must go on," she sighed. In his memory the chill of her kiss was bitter. In the forest they could speak no more of love. But Bobby, hand in hand with her as they hurried after the others, received a new strength. He saw as a condition to their happiness the unveiling of the mystery at the Cedars. He gathered his courage for that task. He would not give way even before the memory of all that he had experienced, even before the return of his grandfather, even before the revelation toward which they walked. And side by side with his determination grew shame for his former weakness. It was comforting to realize that the causes for his weakness and his strength were identical. The subdued murmur of voices reached them. They saw among the indistinct masses of the trees restless patches of black. Katherine stumbled against one of the fallen stones. They stood with the others in the burial ground, close to the mound that had been made that day. "They haven't begun," Bobby whispered. She freed her hand.