Here was dazzling space, the amazing presence of the mountains, the pressure of the starry sky.  Far off already across the flat, that small, dark figure moved.  She had left the road, which ran parallel with the mountain range, and was walking over the hard, sparkling crust.  It supported her weight, but Dickie was not sure that it would do the same for his.  He tried it carefully.  It held, and he followed the faint track of small feet.  It did not occur to him, dazed as he was by the fumes of whiskey and the heady air, that the sight of a man in swift pursuit of her loneliness might frighten Sheila.  For some reason he imagined that she would know that he was Sylvester’s son, and that he was possessed only by the most sociable and protective impulses.

He was, besides, possessed by a fateful feeling that it was intended that out here in the brilliant night he should meet her and talk to her.  The adventurous heart of Dickie was aflame.

When the hurrying figure stopped and turned quickly, he did not pause, but rather hastened his steps.  He saw her lift her muff up to her heart, saw her waver, then move resolutely toward him.  She came thus two or three steps, when a treacherous pitfall in the snow opened under her frightened feet and she went down almost shoulder deep.  Dickie ran forward.

Bending over her, he saw her white, heart-shaped face, and its red mouth as startling as a June rose out here in the snow.  And he saw, too, the panic of her shining eyes.

“Miss Arundel”—­his voice came thin and tender, feeling its way doubtfully as though it was too heavy a reality—­“let me help you.  You are Miss Arundel, aren’t you?  I’m Dickie—­Dickie Hudson, Pap Hudson’s son.  You hadn’t ought to be scared.  I saw you coming out alone and took after you.  I thought you might find it kind of lonesome up here on the flat at night in all the moonlight—­hearing the coyotes and all.  And, look-a-here, you might have had a time getting out of the snow.  Oncet a fellow breaks through it sure means a floundering time before a fellow pulls himself out—­”

She had given him a hand, and he had pulled her up beside him.  Her smile of relief seemed very beautiful to Dickie.

“I came out,” she said, “because it looked so wonderful—­and I wanted to see—­” She stopped, looking at him doubtfully, as though she expected him not to understand, to think her rather mad.  But he finished her sentence.

“—­To see the mountains, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”  She was again relieved, almost as much so, it seemed, as at the knowledge of his friendliness.  “Especially that big one.”  She waved her muff toward the towering peak.  “I never did see such a night!  It’s like—­it’s like—­” She widened her eyes, as though, by taking into her brain an immense picture of the night, she might find out its likeness.

Dickie, moving uncertainly beside her, murmured, “Like the inside of a cold flame, a very white flame.”