Across the road from Jacques De Arthenay’s house, a huge drift had been piled by the first snowstorm of the winter.  Nearly as high as the house it was, and its top combed forward, like a wave ready to break; and in the blue hollow beneath the curling crest was the likeness of a great face.  A rock cropped out, and ice had formed upon its surface, so that the snow fell away from it.  The explanation was simple enough; Jacques De Arthenay, coming and going at his work, never so much as looked at it; but to Marie it was a strange and a dreadful thing to see.  Night and morning, in the cold blue light of the winter moon and the bright hard glitter of the winter sun, the face was always there, gazing in at her through the window, seeing everything she did, perhaps—­who could tell?—­seeing everything she thought.  She changed her seat, and drew down the blind that faced the drift; yet it had a strange fascination for her none the less, and many times in the day she would go and peep through the blind, and shiver, and then come away moaning in a little way that she had when she was alone.  It was pitiful to see how she shrank from the cold,—­the tender creature who seemed born to live and bloom with the flowers, perhaps to wither with them.  Sometimes it seemed to her as if she could not bear it, as if she must run away and find the birds, and the green and joyous things that she loved.  The pines were always green, it is true, in the little grove across the way; but it was a solemn and gloomy green, to her child’s mind,—­she had not yet learned to love the steadfast pines.  Sometimes she would open the door with a wild thought of flying out, of flying far away, as the birds did, and rejoining them in southern countries where the sun was warm, and not a fire that froze while it lighted one.  So cold! so cold!  But when she stood thus, the little wild heart beating fiercely in her, the icy blast would come and chill her into quiet again, and turn the blood thick, so that it ran slower in her veins; and she would think of the leagues and leagues of pitiless snow and ice that lay between her and the birds, and would close the door again, and go back to her work with that little weary moan.

Her husband was very kind in these days; oh, very kind and gentle.  He kept the dark moods to himself, if they came upon him, and tried even to be gay, though he did not know how to set about it.  If he had ever known or looked at a child, this poor man, he would have done better; but it was not a thing that he had ever thought of, and he did not yet know that Marie was a child.  Sometimes when she saw him looking at her with the grave, loving, uncomprehending look that so often followed her as she moved about, she would come to him and lay her head against his shoulder, and remain quiet so for many minutes; but when he moved to stroke her dark head, and say, “What is it, Mary? what troubles you?” she could only say that it was cold, very cold, and then go away again about her work.