While she was stabling her horse, by the light of a lantern, she found herself, amidst warm thoughts of Jud, reproaching herself for the unkindness to this man who hated her husband and who had sworn to be her undoing. She might have given him the ride, she argued against herself; it was so little to give and he was so cold. The blizzard was blowing in force by this time, and her conscience smote her fiercely as she thought of him forging along against its blasting chill. In the village Jud had purchased several suits of warm underclothes for her and she had placed the package in the seat beside her. Groceries and other necessaries were beneath the seat. To her dismay and grief, she found that the package had been in some manner jolted from the seat and was doubtless lost on the road, miles back. The next morning saw the storm still raging. The night just past had been one of the most cruel the country had ever known. Her first thought was of her stock, then of 'Gene Crawley. Had he reached home safely or had he been frozen out there on the open road? A chill of fear and remorse seized her and she turned sick at heart. Jud would not have allowed the man to face such a storm, and if he were frozen no one would condemn her cruelty more bitterly than tender-hearted Jud. She ran to the rear door of her house, from which Grimes's home on the hill could be seen, a mile away. The gust of wind drove the door open as she turned the knob. Something rolled against her feet. The lost bundle lay before her, left there in the night by--it could have been no other than 'Gene Crawley. It was a sob of honest thankfulness to the poor wretch she had spurned in the highway that came from her lips as she lifted the package and closed the door. For many minutes she stood by the window, clasping the bundle in her arms, looking out into the bleak morning. A feeling of relief surged up in the multitude of thoughts, and tears stood in her eyes. Not only had he braved the blizzard safely, hardily, but he had traveled a mile or more farther through the freezing night to deliver at her door the package she had lost from the seat that might have been shared with him. "Did ye hear 'bout 'Gene Crawley?" asked Mrs. Crane, later, when Justine came in from the barn. The old woman was preparing the frugal breakfast and Justine was seated beside the stove, her half-frozen feet near the oven. A sickening terror forced a groan from her lips, for something told her that the news was the worst. His body had been found! "What--what is it?" she whispered. "He whupped the daylights out'n Jake Smalley an' Laz Dunbar down to the tollgate day 'fore yest'day. Mrs. Brown wuz here las' night jest 'fore you got home, an' she says her man says 'twuz the wust fight that ever wuz fit in the county." Justine was leaning back in her chair, her heart throbbing with relief. "Was--was he hurt?" she asked, indefinitely.