Once out of the shelter of the house, the storm struck them with full force, and Willard realised that he was well-nigh strangled in the clutches of a genuine Maine gale. "What folly!" he gasped, crowding his hat over his eyes and struggling to gain his wonted consciousness of superiority. "Come back instantly, Miss Storrs! Your mother----" "Come! come!" she interrupted, pulling him along. He stared at her in amazement. Her eyes were wide open and almost black with excitement. Her face gleamed like ivory in the cold light. Her lips were parted and curved in a happy smile. Her slender body swayed easily with the wind that nearly bent Willard double. She seemed unreal--a phantom of the storm, a veritable wind-spirit. Her loosened hair flew across his face, and its touch completed the strange thrill that her hand-clasp brought. He followed unresistingly. "Aren't--you--afraid--of--the--woods?" he gasped, the gusts tearing the words from his lips, as he saw that she was making for the thick growth of trees that bordered the cliff. Her high, light laughter almost frightened him, so weird and unhuman it came to him on the wind. "Why should I be afraid? The woods are so beautiful in a storm! They bow and nod and throw their branches about--oh, they're best of all, then!" A sweeping blast nearly threw him down, and he instinctively dropped her hand, since there was no possible feeling of protection for her, her footing was so sure, her balance so perfect. As he righted himself and staggered to the shelter of the tree under which she was standing, he stopped, lost in wonder and admiration. She had impatiently thrown off the shawl and stood in a gleam of moonlight under the tree. Her long, straight hair flew out in two fluttering wisps at either side; her straight, fine brows, her dark, long lashes, her slender, curved mouth were painted against her pale face in clear relief. Her eyes were widely open, the pupils dark and gleaming. It seemed to his excited glance that rays of light streamed from them to him. "Heavens! she's a beauty! If only I could catch that pose!" he said under his breath. "Come!" she called to him again, "we're wasting time! I want to get to the cliff!" He pressed on to her, but she slipped around the tree and eluded him, keeping a little in advance as he panted on, fighting with all the force of a fairly powerful man against the gale that seemed to offer her no resistance. It occurred to him, as he watched with a greedy artist's eye the almost unnatural ease and lightness of her walk, that she caught intuitively the turns of the wind, guiding along currents and channels unknown to him, for she seemed with it always, never against it. Once she threw out both her arms in an abandon of delight, and actually leaned on the gust that tossed him against a tree, baffled and wearied with his efforts to keep pace with her, and confusedly wondering if he would wake soon from this improbable dream.