The drone of the threshing-machine was heard coming from the barn, otherwise the yard was still and deserted. They took the path skirting the gable wing of the castle, opened the postern gate, the latch of which was frozen, and entered the garden. It lay shimmering before them in its garment of snow with an opal haze hanging over it. The urns at the corners of the terrace were capped with white and the vines on the wall cowered under their straw covers like freezing children. As they crossed the lawn Felicitas tried to take Leo's arm, but her heavy furs impeded her movements, and she fell behind. The path became lost in the snow on the outskirts of the plantation, but still they were not disposed to turn back. They walked on silently in single file, she trying to step in his footprints. Once he glanced round and asked where they were going. "I don't know," she said, "only let us go on." Aimlessly they wandered round the plantation. They both had a feeling as if they would like to creep away beyond the ken of human eyes. Then he heard her teeth chattering. "You are cold," he said; "we will go back." "No, I am not cold," she declared, shivering in every limb. "I have only got on rather thin shoes;" and she pointed with a faint smile to her gold-embroidered slippers, which in her impatience to come out she had forgotten to change. "Turn back at once," he commanded. She pouted a little, and he, to put an end to her resistance, added, "Or I shall carry you." She spread out her arms beseechingly, and said, smiling, "Then carry me." But his courage failed him, and he took back his offer. "You had better walk," he said. "We might be seen from the windows, and then there would be gossip." She shrugged her shoulders and turned round. It was nearly dark now. A bar of sunset pink glowed between the bare boughs, and there was a rosy gleam on the wastes of snow ere they became bathed in night. Nothing stirred, only now and then little heaps of snow fell from the twigs and, star-shaped, plumped on the ground. As they came by the greenhouse, Felicitas pointed to the reflection of a fire dancing on the panes of the glass. "We could warm ourselves in there," she whispered. "Hadn't we better go on to the castle?" he asked hesitatingly, as he cast a dark sidelong look at the fire. "No; come along," she exclaimed with a light laugh, and led the way into the glass-house. He followed passively. Faggots of wood were stacked in the little room, and the firelight played on them mysteriously. They looked like wreckage gradually being devoured by a hidden conflagration. The door of the furnace was below the level of the floor. It was let into a recess in the wall, to which three steps led down. Flames escaped from the red-hot plaques, and the pungent odour of damp burning alder-wood.