After many hours the train was dug out of the snow, and sped forward again in daylight. Maurice slept a little, but uneasily. And now, when he was awake, he began to be filled with an unreasonable apprehension, for which he accounted by taking stock of the low temperature of his body, and of the loss of vitality occasioned by want of food and rest. He was seized with fear as he came up into the north and saw vaguely the moors around him, the snowy waves where the white woods rippled up the flanks of the white hills. He began to realise again his former condition when his life was full of the lamentation of the child. He began to feel as if he drew near to that lamentation once more. Perhaps the little sorrowful spirit had only deserted him to return to the valley in which it first greeted him. Perhaps it would come again to him there. He might hear the cry from the garden of the cottage as he hastened past. He shuddered and cursed his wild fancies. But they stayed with him through all the rest of the journey, through all the delays and periods of numb patience. And they increased upon him. When at last he reached the dreary station by the flat sandbanks, at which he changed into the valley train, he was pale and careworn, and full of alarm. Very slowly the tiny train crawled up into the heart of the hills as the darkness of the second night came down. Maurice was the only passenger in it. He felt like one alone in a lonely world, fearing inhabitants unseen, but whose distant presence he was aware of. Could Lily indeed be here, beyond him in this desolation? It seemed impossible. But the child might be here, wandering, a lost spirit, in this unutterable winter. That would not be strange to him. And his soul grew colder than his body. He could see nothing from the window, but occasionally he heard the dry tapping of twigs upon the glass, as the train crept among the leafless woods. And this tapping seemed to him to be the tiny fingers of the child, feebly endeavouring to attract his attention. He shrank away from the window to the centre of the carriage. At the last station in the valley the train stopped. Maurice got out into the darkness, and asked the guard the name of the house in which Mrs. Dale lived. "Mrs. Dale," he said, in the broad Cumberland dialect, "Oh, she bides at End Cottage." Maurice stared at his rugged face peering above the round lamp which he held. "End Cottage?" "Yes, sir. The poor lady took it on a six months' lease, but I hear she's--" But Maurice had turned away with a muttered: "I'll send up for the luggage." He stumbled out into the white lane and through the little village. One or two lads, roughly dressed and sprinkled with snowflakes, eyed him from the shelter of the inn porch. As he moved past them, he heard their muttered comments. He left the houses behind and found himself among snow-laden trees. End Cottage was hidden in this narrow wood which was generally full of the sound of the waterfall.