It could not have been far from midnight when she awoke to a sense of being alone and not far from the side-door into the yard.  Her partner—­whoever he was—­had gone to get her some ice-cream or a cup of coffee.  Cornelia did not wait for his return, but walked quickly and unobserved to the door, which stood a few inches ajar, opened it, passed through, and stood in the unconfined air.  The keen intensity of the tonic made her nostrils ache, and her uncovered bosom heave.  She unbuttoned one of her gloves, and, taking some snow in her hand, pressed it to her warm temples, and then let it drop shivering into her breast.

“It must feel like that to die, I suppose,” thought she.  “If I were Sophie, now, that snow would be the death of me in two days:  as it is, I shall only have a cold in the head to-morrow.  There seems to be no reason in these things.”

A dark figure turned the farther corner of the house, and came ploughing through the snow immediately under the eaves, dragging one hand along the clapboards as it came.  The crunching of the snow caught Cornelia’s ears, and she turned and recognized the figure in half a breath.  The great height, the massive breadth, the easy, springing tread—­it was Bressant from head to foot.  He was buttoned up in a short pea-jacket, and there was a round fur cap on his head.  As Cornelia turned upon him, he stopped a moment, standing quite motionless, with the fingers of one hand resting on the side of the house.  Then he came close up to her and grasped her wrist with his gloved hand.

“Where is Sophie?” demanded he in his rapid, muffled voice.

“She’s ill:  she caught cold:  she’s at home,” answered Cornelia, who, at the first recognition, had felt a kind of twang through all her nerves, and was now trying to control the effects of the shock.  There was something queer in Bressant’s manner—­in the way he looked at her.

“But you came,” rejoined he, stooping down and peering into her beautiful, troubled face.  He broke into a laugh, which terrified Cornelia greatly, because he laughed so seldom.  “One might know you’d come.  You thought I’d be here:  you came to see me, and here I am.  Will Sophie get well?”

“Oh, yes! she was much better.  When I left she had on her—­wedding-dress.”

Bressant drew in his breath hissingly between his teeth, and his fingers tightened a moment round Cornelia’s wrist.  The pain forced a sob from her and turned her lips pale.  He paid no attention to her, presently dropped her wrist, and put his hands behind him, grinding the snow beneath his heel, and looking down.

“Whom is she going to marry?” was his next question, asked without raising his head.

“You!” exclaimed Cornelia, in astonishment and fear.  The answer sprang to her lips without forethought or reflection, so much had the strange question startled her.

But he again stooped down and peered into her eyes, watching the effect of his words on her as he spoke them.