After a confused and hideous dream, in which I lay chained to a glacier while an arctic wind blew through my garments, I opened my eyes with the impression that the nightmare had been real. A powerful wind _was_ blowing! I could hear it blustering and wailing among the treetops; through my open window it flickered and sallied with a breath that seemed straight from the Pole. Leaping to my feet, I hastily closed the great shutters I had constructed of pine wood; and, at the same time, I caught glimpses of gray skies with a scudding rack of clouds, and of little white flakes driving and reeling down. In my surprise at this change in the weather, I was struck by premonitions as bleak as the bleak heavens. What of Yasma? How would she behave in the storm?--she who was apparently unprepared for the winter! Though I tried to convince myself that there was no cause for concern, an unreasoning something within me insisted that there was cause indeed. It was not a minute, therefore, before I was slipping on my goatskin coat. But I might have spared my pains. At this instant there came a tapping from outside, and my heart began to beat fiercely as I shouted, "Come in!" The log door moved upon its hinges, and a short slim figure slipped inside. "Yasma!" I cried, surprised and delighted, as I forced the door shut in the face of the blast. But my surprise was swiftly to grow, and my delight to die; at sight of her wild, sad eyes, I started back in wonder and dismay. In part they burned with a mute resignation, and in part with the unutterable pain of one bereaved; yet at the same time her face was brightened with an indefinable exultation, as though beneath that vivid countenance some secret ecstasy glowed and smoldered. "I have come to say good-bye," she murmured, in dreary tones. "I have come to say good-bye." "Good-bye!"--It was as though I had heard that word long ago in a bitter dream. Yet how could I accept the decree? Passion took fire within me as I seized Yasma and pressed her to me. "Do not leave me!" I pleaded. "Oh, why must you go away? Where must you go? Tell me, Yasma, tell me! Why must I stay here alone the whole winter long? Why can't I go with you? Or why can't you stay with me? Stay here, Yasma! We could be so happy together, we two!" Tears came into her eyes at this appeal. "You make me sad, very sad," she sighed, as she freed herself from my embrace. "I do not want to leave you here alone--and yet, oh what else can I do? The cold days have come, and my people call me, and I must go where the flowers are. Oh, you don't know how gladly I'd have you come with us; but you don't understand the way, and can't find it, and I can't show it to you. So I must go now, I must go, I must! for soon the last bird will have flown south."