But Virginia had acquired a certain measure of self-discipline in these weary weeks, and her mind at once flashed to her pistol. Fortunately she had not taken it from her belt, and she had full confidence in her ability to shoot it quickly and well. Besides, she remembered that her door was securely bolted. "Who's there?" she asked. "Is it you, Bill?" "It's not Bill," the answer came. "But he's here." The first thought that came to her was that Bill had been injured, hurt in some adventure in the snow, and men had brought him back to the cabin. Something that was like a sickness surged through her frame. But an instant more she knew that, had he been injured, there would have been no wayfarers to find him and bring him in. There was only one remaining possibility: that this man was one whom Bill had gone out to find and who had returned with him. The thought was so startling, so fraught with tremendous possibilities that for a moment she seemed to lose all power of speech or action. "Who is it?" she asked again, steadily as she could. And the answer came strange and stirring through the heavy door. "It's I--Harold Lounsbury. Bill told me to come." Virginia was oppressed and baffled as if in a mysterious dream. For the moment she stood still, trying to quiet her leaping heart and her fluttering nerves. Yet she knew she had to make answer. She knew that she must find out whether this voice spoke true--whether or not it was her lost lover, returned to her at last. Yet there could be no mistake. The voice was the same that she remembered of old. It was as if it had spoken out of the dead years. Her hands clasped at her breast, then she walked to the threshold and opened the door. Harold Lounsbury stepped through, blinking in the candlelight. Instinctively the girl flung back, giving him full right of way and staring as if he were a ghost. He turned to her, half apologetic. "Bill told me to come," he said. The man stood with arms limp at his side, and a great surge of mingled emotions swept the girl as in a flood. She was pale as a ghost, and her hands trembled when she stretched them out. "Harold," she murmured unsteadily. She tried to smile. "Is it really you, Harold?" "It's I," he answered. "We've come together--at last." The words seemed to rally her scattered faculties. The dreamlike quality of the scene at once dissolved. Utter and bewildering surprise is never an emotion that can long endure; its very quality makes for brevity. Already some leveling, cool sense within her had begun to accept the fact of his presence. Instinctively her eyes swept his face and form. All doubt was past: this man was unquestionably Harold. Yet she was secretly and vaguely shocked. Her first impression was one of change: that the years had some way altered him,--other than the natural changes that no living creature may escape.