Framed in a sort of natural doorway of the woods, where the pale green foliage was parted in a little arched opening, stood a slender figure with gleaming dark eyes and loose-flowing auburn hair. "Yasma!" I shouted. And my heart pounded as if it would burst; and my limbs shuddered, and my breath came fast; and the silent tears flowed as I staggered forward with outspread arms. Without a word she glided forth to meet me, and in an instant we were locked in an embrace. It must have been minutes before we parted. Not a syllable did we speak; ours was a reunion such as sundered lovers may know beyond the grave. When at length our arms slipped apart and I gazed at the familiar face, her cheeks were wet but her eyes were glistening. It might have been but an hour since we had met, for she did not seem changed at all. "Oh, my beloved," she murmured, using the first term of endearment I had ever heard from her lips, "it has been so long since I have seen you! So long, oh, how long!" "It has been long for me too. Longer than whole years. Oh, Yasma, why did you have to leave?" A frown flitted across the beautiful face, and the luminous eyes became momentarily sad. "Do not ask that!" she begged. "Oh, do not ask now!" And, seeing her distress, I was sorry that the unpremeditated question had slipped from my lips. "All that counts, Yasma," said I, gently, "is that you are here now. For that I thank whatever powers have had you in their keeping." "Thank Yulada!" she suggested, cryptically, with a motion toward the southern mountains. It was now my turn to frown. "Oh, tell me, tell me all that has happened during the long winter!" she demanded, almost passionately, as I clutched both her hands and she stared up at me with an inquiring gaze. "You look so changed! So worn and tired out, as if you had been through great sufferings! Did you really suffer so much?" "My greatest suffering, Yasma, was the loneliness I felt for you. That was harder to bear than the blizzards. But, thank heaven! that is over now. You won't ever go away from me again, will you, Yasma?" She averted her eyes, then impulsively turned from me, and stood staring toward that steel-gray figure on the peak. It was a minute before she faced me again; and when she did so it was with lips drawn and compressed. "We must not talk of such things!" she urged, with pleading in her eyes. "We must be happy, happy now while we can be, and not question what is to come!" "Of course, we must be happy now," I agreed. But her reply had aroused my apprehensions, and even at the moment of reunion I wondered whether she had come only to flutter away again like a feather or a cloud. "See how quick I came back to you!" she cried, as though to divert my mind. "I left before all the other women, for I knew you would be waiting here, lonely for me." "And were you too lonely, Yasma?"