He placed her chair where she could feel the glow and see, through the wide window, a crescent moon mounting delicately into the clear sky.  There was game and salad, custard and coffee—­a charming feast.  Mrs. Hays came and went quietly serving them.  Karl said little.  He was content with the essential richness of the moment.  It was as if Destiny had distilled this hour for him, giving it to him to quaff.  He was grave, but he did not resent her sorrowfulness.  Sorrow, he observed, might have as sweet a flavor as joy.  It did not matter by what name the present hour was called.  It was there—­he rested in it as in a state of being which had been appointed—­a goal toward which he had been journeying.

“What’s to be done?” he asked.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Kate, “that we had better move her from that room.  Is there none from which no mountains are visible?  She ought not to have the continual reminder of those icebergs.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” he cried with vexation.  “That shows how stupid a man can be.  Certainly we have such a room as you wish.  It looks over the barnyard.  It’s cheerful but noisy.  You can hear the burros and the chickens and pigs and calves and babies all day long.”

“It’s precisely what she needs.  Her thoughts are the things to fear, and I know of no way to break those up except by crowding others in.  Is the room pleasant—­gay?”

“No—­hardly clean, I should say.  But we can work on it like fiends.”

“Let’s do it, then,—­put in chintz, pictures, flowers, books, a jar of goldfish, a cage of finches,—­anything that will make her forget that terrible white procession of bergs.”

“You think it isn’t too late?  You think we can save her?”

“I won’t admit anything else,” declared Kate.

The wind began to rise.  It came rushing from far heights and moaned around the house.  The silence yielded to this mournful sound, yet kept its essential quality.

“It’s a wild place,” said Kate; “wilder than any place I have been in before.  But it seems secure.  I find it hard to believe that you have been in danger here.”

“I am in danger now,” said Karl.  “Much worse danger than I was in when the poor excited dagoes were threatening me.”

“What is your danger?” asked Kate.

She was incapable of coquetry after that experience in Honora’s room; nor did the noble solitude of the place permit the thought of an excursion into the realms of any sort of dalliance.  Moreover, though Karl’s words might have led her to think of him as ready to play with a sentimental situation, the essential loftiness of his gaze forbade her to entertain the thought.