“It has names, several—­but most of them are misleading,” said John, thoughtfully.

“So you leave it to me to discover what this mysterious influence may be, or to remain forever in ignorance of it.”

In her dark red cloak with tendrils of the deep golden hair showing at the edge of her hood, she seemed to John a very sprite of the snows, and the blue eyes said clearly to the gray: 

“I know!”

And the gray answered back in the same language: 

“I know!”

Nevertheless John would not let words betray him.  He thought that the mountain and their isolation gave him an unfair advantage, and the young crusader upon whom the mantle of chivalry had descended had too knightly a soul to use it, at least in speech.

“And so, sir,” she said, “you will not venture upon such an abstruse subject?”

“No, I think not.  I don’t believe you could call it an evasion, but perhaps it’s fear.”

“Fear of what, John?”

“I’m not sure about that, either.  Perhaps elsewhere and under more suitable circumstances I may be able to put my thought into words, precise and understandable.  It will take time, but that I shall do so some day I have no doubt.”

She looked away, and then the two, the snow shovels in their hands, walked back gravely to the lodge.  Suzanne stood in the doorway watching them.  She knew that they were wholly oblivious of her presence, that they had not even seen her, yet the heart of the stern peasant woman was warm within her, although she felt that she now had two children instead of one under her care.

Neither was Suzanne given up wholly to the present.  She spent many anxious hours thinking of the future.  The deep snow could not last forever.  Already there was a warmer breath in the air.  When it began to melt it would go fast, and then Auersperg—­if he were still at Zillenstein—­eaten up with impatience and anger because he could hear nothing from the lodge, would act, and he would show no mercy to the young man with the brown hair and the gray eyes, who was now walking by the side of her beloved Julie.

John himself took notice the next day of the signs.  Spring, which already held sway in the lowlands, was creeping up the slope of the highlands.  The sun was distinctly warmer and tiny rivulets of water flowed along the edges of the runways.  In a few more days retainers of Auersperg or troops would come up the mountain.  The prince himself might have been compelled to return to the war, but he would certainly leave orders in capable hands.  John never deluded himself for a moment upon that subject.  His shoveling in the snow made him quite sure now that a road led over the mountain and southward, and he had made up his mind to take the automobile and the two women and try it, as soon as the snow melted enough to permit of such an attempt.  One might get through, and he had proved for himself that fortune favors the daring.