As the evening twilight came earlier and the trees were burnished a deeper scarlet and gold, a strange mood came over Yasma. She was no longer her old frolicsome self; she would no longer go dancing light-heartedly among the woods and fields; she would not greet me with laughter when I returned to our cabin, nor play her little games of hide-and-seek, nor smile at me in the old winsome whimsical way. But she was as if burdened with a deep sorrow. Her eyes had the look of one who suffers but cannot say why; her actions were as mechanical as though her life-interest had forsaken her. She would sit on the cabin floor for hours at a time, staring into vacancy; she would stand with eyes fastened upon the wild birds as their successive companies went winging southward; she would gaze absently up at Yulada, or would mumble unintelligible prayers; she would go off by herself into the forest, and when she returned her cheeks would be moist. At times, indeed, she struggled to break loose from this melancholia. For a moment the old sweet untroubled smile would come back into her eyes, and she would take my hand, and beg me not to mind her queer ways; but after a few minutes the obsession would return. Now and then she would be actually merry for a while, but I would fancy that in her very gaiety there was something strained; and more than once her jovial mood ended in tears. I could not understand her conduct; I was more deeply worried than she could have known; and often when she sat at my side, wrapped in some impenetrable revery, I would be absorbed in a bleak revery of my own, wherein Yasma would have the central place. Yet, even at this late date, it would have been possible to avert catastrophe. Dimly I recognized that I had only to release Yasma from her promise, and she would be once more her buoyant, happy self. But I could not bring myself to the necessary point. In part I was restrained by the very urge of self-preservation, by the threat of madness if I must live alone winter after winter; in part I was held back by sheer stubbornness, the determination not to surrender the prize on which I had set my heart. And in part I was misled by my own blindness. I still felt that I had only to win this one victory, and happiness would shine for me again; that once I had weaned Yasma from her long yearly absences, neither of us would have anything more to fear.