It was probably the foot of a woman.  Beyond that mark was another, then another, then another.  The footprints followed each other at the distance of a step, and struck across the plain to the right.  They were still fresh, and slightly covered with little snow.  A woman had just passed that way.

This woman was walking in the direction in which the child had seen the smoke.  With his eyes fixed on the footprints, he set himself to follow them.

CHAPTER II.

THE EFFECT OF SNOW.

He journeyed some time along this course.  Unfortunately the footprints were becoming less and less distinct.  Dense and fearful was the falling of the snow.  It was the time when the hooker was so distressed by the snow-storm at sea.

The child, in distress like the vessel, but after another fashion, had, in the inextricable intersection of shadows which rose up before him, no resource but the footsteps in the snow, and he held to it as the thread of a labyrinth.

Suddenly, whether the snow had filled them up or for some other reason, the footsteps ceased.  All became even, level, smooth, without a stain, without a detail.  There was now nothing but a white cloth drawn over the earth and a black one over the sky.  It seemed as if the foot-passenger had flown away.  The child, in despair, bent down and searched; but in vain.

As he arose he had a sensation of hearing some indistinct sound, but he could not be sure of it.  It resembled a voice, a breath, a shadow.  It was more human than animal; more sepulchral than living.  It was a sound, but the sound of a dream.

He looked, but saw nothing.

Solitude, wide, naked and livid, was before him.  He listened.  That which he had thought he heard had faded away.  Perhaps it had been but fancy.  He still listened.  All was silent.

There was illusion in the mist.

He went on his way again.  He walked forward at random, with nothing henceforth to guide him.

As he moved away the noise began again.  This time he could doubt it no longer.  It was a groan, almost a sob.

He turned.  He searched the darkness of space with his eyes.  He saw nothing.  The sound arose once more.  If limbo could cry out, it would cry in such a tone.

Nothing so penetrating, so piercing, so feeble as the voice—­for it was a voice.  It arose from a soul.  There was palpitation in the murmur.  Nevertheless, it seemed uttered almost unconsciously.  It was an appeal of suffering, not knowing that it suffered or that it appealed.

The cry—­perhaps a first breath, perhaps a last sigh—­was equally distant from the rattle which closes life and the wail with which it commences.  It breathed, it was stifled, it wept, a gloomy supplication from the depths of night.  The child fixed his attention everywhere, far, near, on high, below.  There was no one.  There was nothing.  He listened.  The voice arose again.  He perceived it distinctly.  The sound somewhat resembled the bleating of a lamb.