He set out, walking briskly, facing the crisp wind till the tears came into his eyes and rolled down his cold cheeks. Far beyond old Millstead spire the sun was already sinking into the snow, and all the sky of the west was shot with streams of pendulous fire. The stalks of the tallest grasses were clotted with snow which the sun had tried hard to melt and was now leaving to freeze stiff and crystalline; as the twilight crept over the earth the wind blew colder and the film of snow lately fallen made the path over the meadows hard and slippery with ice. Then it was that he met Clare; in the middle of the meadows between Millstead and Parminters, at twilight amidst a waste of untrod snow. Her face was wonderfully lit with the reflection of the fading whiteness, that his mind reacted to it as to the sudden brink was in her eyes. He felt himself growing suddenly pale; he stopped, silent, without a smile, as if frozen stiff by the sight of her. And she said, half laughing: "Hello, Mr. Speed! You look unusually grim...." Then she paused, and added in a different voice: "No--on further observation I think you look ill.... Tell me, what's the matter?" He knew then that he loved her. The revelation came on him so sharply, so acidly, with such overwhelming and uncompromising directness, that his mind reacted to it as to the sudden brink of a chasm. He saw the vast danger of his position. He saw the stupendous fool he had been. He saw, as if some mighty veil had been pulled aside, the stream of tragedy sweeping him on to destruction. And he stopped short, all the manhood in him galvanised into instant determination. He replied, smiling: "I'm _feeling_ perfectly well, anyway. Beautiful after the snowstorm, isn't it?" "Yes." It was so clear, so ominously clear that she would stop to talk to him if he would let her. Therefore he said, curtly: "I'm afraid it's spoilt all the chances of skating, though.... Pity, isn't it? Well, I won't keep you in the cold--one needs to walk briskly and keep on walking, doesn't one? Good night!" "Good night," she said simply.