Having made my resolve, I could face the world with fresh courage. All that winter, when the mountains were white specters beneath the blue sky or when the clouds blotted out the peaks and the snow was sifted down day after day, I kept hope alive not only at the thought of Yasma's return in the spring but by the determination that she should not leave in the autumn. I might be tormented by loneliness; I might read only sorrow in the denuded woods, and menace in the lowering skies; I might quiver at the wail of the wolf, and people the shadows of the night with evil shapes; I might find the peaks cruelly aloof, and Yulada as disdainful as ever on her rock-throne; yet at least I had something to clutch at, something to bring me consolation and make it seem worth while to live. But there was another thought that lent the world interest. Yulada still drew me toward her with a mysterious fascination; I was as anxious as ever to climb to her feet. My previous failures did not discourage me; I told myself that I had been unlucky, and should succeed if I persisted. Had the upper altitudes not been coated with ice, I should have made the attempt immediately after Yasma's departure; but experience had taught me to wait; and I determined that early in the spring, before the first Ibandru had reappeared, I should again match my strength with the elusive slopes. It was when March was still young that a benign mildness came into the air; that the snow began to melt, and the streams to run full to the brim. During most of the month the warmth endured; and shortly before the arrival of April the peaks were banded and mottled with wide gray patches, and I concluded that it was time for my new adventure. I was not at fault in this judgment. Never before had the ascent seemed quite so easy; the way had been smoothed as though by invisible hands. No ice or snow impeded me along the lower slopes, or blockaded me on the upper; no impassable cliff intervened as I followed the windings of the trail through groves of deodar and pine, and along the verge of thousand-foot precipices. But the blue sky, the invigorating breezes and the new-washed glittering peaks all served to strengthen my determination. To climb to Yulada appeared almost a simple matter, and I could scarcely understand why I had not succeeded before. Yet somehow I could not remain cheerful as the hours went by and I trudged along the stony ledges and over ridge after steep projecting ridge. Or was I being infected with the same superstition as the Ibandru felt? This much, at least, I know: the higher I mounted, the lower my spirits sank; I began to feel as one who sacrilegiously invades a shrine; had I not opposed my determination to my fears, I might not have come within miles of Yulada.