The morning of January 10, as it dawned on the three forgotten soldiers,--if it may be said to have dawned at all,--cast a singular light on the mountain-top. It had come on to thaw, and the time of the winter avalanches was at hand. The sky overhead was of a colorless density which was no longer a dome; and it seemed to Philip, as he stood on the rocks, as if he could stretch out his hand and touch it. Somewhere in its depth the sun was blotted out. Ragged clouds settled below the mountain-top, and then, borne on an imperceptible wind, a sea of fog swallowed up the clouds and blotted out the valley and the ranges beyond, even as it had blotted out the sun, leaving Sherman Territory an island drifting through space. Philip closed the telescope with a moan, and replaced it in its leathern case. Even the trees on the island, and the rocks heaped in ledges, grew gray and indistinct, and presently the thick mist resolved itself into a vertical rain falling gently on the melting snow. The strokes of an ax in the direction of the house had a muffled sound, like an automatic buoy far out at sea. Philip turned with another sigh, and took the familiar path in the direction of the ax, groping his way in the mist as a mountaineer feels the trail in the night with his feet. The sound of the chopping ceases, and a great stillness broods on the mountain. Evidently the chopper has sought shelter from the rain. Brown leaves begin to show where the snow has disappeared on the path, so familiar to the feet of the wanderer that no sound should be needed to toll him home. But to-day, while his feet are on the mountain-top, his aching heart is in the valley. She has gone forever from the arms of the lover she never saw. He sees before him the wedding of yesterday, and in his gentleness he is incapable of hating even his successful rival. He is capable only of grief. Bitter tears fall on his breast and on his clasped hands. A great aching is in his throat, and a dimness in his suffused eyes. He throws his arms out and presses his temples with his clenched hands, and mutters with a choking sound, as he walks. He does not know that the rain is falling on his upturned face. He turns to go back. He changes his mind and advances. He is no longer in the path. He has no thought of where he goes. The blades of dead grass, and the dry seeds and fragments of leaves, cling thick upon the sodden surface of his tattered boots. He strides on absently over the ground, parting the fog and cooling his feverish face in the rain; and every step leads him nearer to the boulder face of the mountain where the great avalanches are getting ready to fall a thousand feet into the Cove below. The events of yesterday go before him. He sees the procession come out of the church house, the women in one group and the men following in another, and he and she going hand in hand in the advance. He feels the sunshine of yesterday on his head and the misery in his heart.