The snow had ceased, and the sky was clear.  Stars were beginning to pierce the darkness.

Slowly the minutes crawled by.  She began to listen for his coming, to chafe at his delay.  At last, grown nervous with suspense, she turned from the window and went into the hall.  She opened the door and stepped out into the porch.

Still and starlit lay the path before her.  The snow had been swept away.  Impulse seized her.  She felt she could wait no longer.  She slipped back into the hall, took a coat of Jeff’s from a peg, put it on, and so passed out into the open.

The way to the stable lay past the mill-stream.  On noiseless feet she followed it.  The water was deep and dark and silent.  She shivered as she drew near.  In the stable beyond, close to the mill, she saw a light.  It was moving towards her.  In a moment she discovered Jeff’s face above it, and—­was it something she actually saw in the face, or was it an illusion created by the swinging lantern?—­her heart gave a sudden jerk of horror.  For it was to her as if she looked upon the face of a dead man.

She stood still in the shadow of a weeping willow, arrested by that look, and watched him come slowly forth.

He moved heavily as one driven by Fate, pulling the stable door to after him.  This he turned to lock, then stooped, still with that face as of a death-mask, and deliberately extinguished his lantern.

Doris’s heart jerked again at the action, and every pulse began to clamour.  Why did he put out the lantern before reaching the house?

The next moment she heard his footsteps, slow and heavy, coming towards her.  The path wound along a bank a couple of feet above the mill-stream.  He approached till in the darkness he had nearly reached her, then he stopped.

She thought he had discerned her, but the next moment she realized that he had not.  He was facing the water; he seemed to be staring across it.  And even as she watched he took another step straight towards it.

It was then that like a flashlight leaping from his brain to hers she realized what he was about to do.  How the knowledge came to her she knew not, but it was hers past all disputing in that single second of blinding revelation.  And just as that morning she had been inspired to act on sheer wild impulse, so now without an instant’s pause she acted again.  She sprang from her hiding-place with a strangled cry, and threw her arms about him.

“Jeff!  Jeff!  What are you doing here?”

He gave a great start that made her think of a frightened animal, and stood still.  She felt his arms grow rigid at his sides, and knew that his hands were clenched.

“Jeff!” she cried again, clinging faster.  “You—­you’re never thinking of—­of that?”

Her utterance ended in a shudder as she sought with all her strength to drag him away from the icy water.

He resisted her doggedly, standing like a rock.  “Whatever I’m thinking of doing is my affair,” he said, shortly and sternly.  “Go away and leave me alone!”