"Let it be as you wish. I will not go," she was saying, in tones wherein there seemed to be scarcely a trace of life. "I will not go. I will stay with you here--if Yulada permits." And she buried her face against my breast, and her whole form shook and shuddered. And as I reached out a trembling hand to comfort her, there came a weird querulous calling from the deep gloom above; and I knew that still another flying thing, perhaps the last, had gone gliding on its way beyond the mountains. CHAPTER XXIV _THE WILL OF YULADA_ Again it was winter in Sobul. The snow lay deep in the deserted fields, and in the woods it wove strange arabesques about the limbs of leafless trees; the mountains were white with vast majestic new draperies. At times the blizzards came moaning out of the northwest, with driving flakes and gales; at times the sky was icy clear and scarcely a breeze stirred amid the charmed silences. But whether the day was bright or tempest-blurred could matter little now, for all days alike were desolate in this saddest of winters. Not long after the last birds had flown south, I began to repent of my madness in detaining Yasma. Once that fierce culminating revolt had collapsed, she did not flame forth any more in rebellion or protest; but I would have welcomed a return of the old impetuous spirit. She was gentle now, exceedingly kindly and gentle; she would hover by me fondly, and her words would be soft-spoken and affectionate; but she was no longer her old self. Something had gone out of her that had made her spirit like fire; and something with the touch of frost had taken its place. The dreary mood of the autumn, with its mute and morbid musing, had not left her even now; but with it another mood was mingled, a chilling mood, a mood as of one dazed and frightened. But of what she was frightened she would not say; she was afraid of the outdoors, and would never go forth except in my company, and then never far; and she liked best of all to linger amid the shadows of the cabin, gazing into the golden log blaze or merely staring at the blank walls and brooding. And always she appeared to be cold, both mentally and physically cold. An abnormal apathy, almost a lethargy, had drained all her interest in life; she seemed to have few ideas except those which I suggested to her; and blue days and gray days were all as one to her. When I spoke, she would answer, but usually only in monosyllables; she would agree to every statement as though the world held nothing worth disputing; she had the manner of one whose visible form occupies this earth, but whose spirit dwells far-off.