The fighting of the dogs had for the first few moments sounded farther and farther away, retreating through the barn and thence into the lot; and by and by the shepherd ran around and stood before David, awaiting orders. David seized the sheep by the feet and dragged it into the saddle-house; sent the dog to watch the rest of the flock; and ran back to the house, drawing his overcoat more tightly about him. As quickly as possible he got into bed and covered up warmly. Something caused him to recollect just then the case of one of the Bible students. "Now I am in for it," he said. And this made him think of his great masters and of Gabriella; and he lay there very anxious in the night. XXI Twilight had three times descended on the drear land. Three times Gabriella, standing at her windows and looking out upon the snow and ice, had seen everything disappear. How softly white were the snow-covered trees; how soft the black that thickened about them till they were effaced. Gabriella thought of them as still perfectly white out there in the darkness. Three evenings with her face against the pane she had watched for a familiar figure to stalk towering up the yard path, and no familiar figure had come. Three evenings she had returned to her firelight, and sat before it with an ear on guard for the sound of a familiar step on the porch below; but no step had been heard. On the first night she had all but hoped that he would not seek her; the avowal of their love for each other had well-nigh left it an unendurable joy. But the second night she had begun to expect him confidently; and when the hour had passed and he had not come, Gabriella sat long before her fire with a new wound--she who had felt so many. By the third day she had reviewed all that she had ever heard of him or known of him: gathered it all afresh as a beautiful thing for receiving him with when he should come to her that night. Going early to her room she had taken her chair to the window and with her face close to the pane had watched again--watched that white yard; and again nothing moved in that white yard but the darkness. She sprang up and began to walk to and fro. "If he does not come to-night, something has happened. I know, I know, I know! Something is wrong. My heart is not mistaken. Oh, if anything were to happen to HIM! I must not think of it! I have borne many things; but THAT! I must not think of it!" She sank into her chair with her ear strained toward the porch below. For a long time there was no sound. Then she heard the noise of heavy boots--a tapping of the toes against the pillars, to knock off the snow, and then the slow creaking of soles across the frozen boards. She started up. "It is some one else," she cried, wringing her hands. "Something has happened to him." She stopped still in the middle of the room, her arms dropped at her sides, her eyes stretched wide.