Certainly some soft persuasion coaxed his very soul, urging him ever forwards, upwards, on towards the higher icy slopes.  Judgment and reason left their throne, it seemed, completely, as in the madness of intoxication.  The girl, slim and seductive, kept always just ahead, so that he never quite came up with her.  He saw the white enchantment of her face and figure, something that streamed about her neck flying like a wreath of snow in the wind, and heard the alluring accents of her whispering voice that called from time to time:  “A little farther on, a little higher....  Then we’ll run home together!”

Sometimes he saw her hand stretched out to find his own, but each time, just as he came up with her, he saw her still in front, the hand and arm withdrawn.  They took a gentle angle of ascent.  The toil seemed nothing.  In this crystal, wine-like air fatigue vanished.  The sishing of the ski through the powdery surface of the snow was the only sound that broke the stillness; this, with his breathing and the rustle of her skirts, was all he heard.  Cold moonshine, snow, and silence held the world.  The sky was black, and the peaks beyond cut into it like frosted wedges of iron and steel.  Far below the valley slept, the village long since hidden out of sight.  He felt that he could never tire....  The sound of the church clock rose from time to time faintly through the air—­more and more distant.

“Give me your hand.  It’s time now to turn back.”

“Just one more slope,” she laughed.  “That ridge above us.  Then we’ll make for home.”  And her low voice mingled pleasantly with the purring of their ski.  His own seemed harsh and ugly by comparison.

“But I have never come so high before.  It’s glorious!  This world of silent snow and moonlight—­and you.  You’re a child of the snow, I swear.  Let me come up—­closer—­to see your face—­and touch your little hand.”

Her laughter answered him.

“Come on!  A little higher.  Here we’re quite alone together.”

“It’s magnificent,” he cried.  “But why did you hide away so long?  I’ve looked and searched for you in vain ever since we skated—­” he was going to say “ten days ago,” but the accurate memory of time had gone from him; he was not sure whether it was days or years or minutes.  His thoughts of earth were scattered and confused.

“You looked for me in the wrong places,” he heard her murmur just above him.  “You looked in places where I never go.  Hotels and houses kill me.  I avoid them.”  She laughed—­a fine, shrill, windy little laugh.

“I loathe them too—­”

He stopped.  The girl had suddenly come quite close.  A breath of ice passed through his very soul.  She had touched him.

“But this awful cold!” he cried out, sharply, “this freezing cold that takes me.  The wind is rising; it’s a wind of ice.  Come, let us turn ...!”