It came to David like an inspiration that he had not thought of the lake; the ice was thin on the southern shore below where the river emptied.  Suppose she had gone there; suppose in her utter desolation she had gone there to end it all?  Imagination, quickened by suspense and suffering, ran to meet calamity; already he was there and saw the bare trees, bearing their burden of snow, and the placid surface, half frozen over, and on the southern shore, that faintly rippled under its skimming of ice, something dark floating.  He saw the floating black hair, and the dead eyes, open, as if in accusation of the grim injustice of it all.

He hurried through the drifted snow, as fast as his spent strength would permit, stumbling once or twice over some obstruction, and covered the weary distance to the lake.

About a hundred yards from the lake Dave saw something that made his heart knock against his ribs and his breath come short, as if he had been running.  It was Anna’s gray cloak.  It lay spread out on the snow as if it had been discarded hastily; there were footprints of a woman’s shoes near by; some of them leading toward the lake, others away from it, as if she might have come and her courage failed her at the last moment.  The cape had not the faintest trace of snow on its upturned surface.  It must, therefore, have been discarded lately, after the snowstorm had ceased this morning.

Dave continued his search in an agony of apprehension.  The sun faintly struggled with the mass of gray cloud, revealing a world of white.  He had wandered in the direction of a clump of cedars, and remembered pointing the place out to her in the autumn as the scene of some boyish adventure, which to commemorate he had cut his name on one of the trees.  Association, more than any hope of finding her, led him to the cedars—­and she was there.  She had fallen, apparently, from cold and exhaustion.  He bent down close to the white, still face that gave no sign of life.  He called her name, he kissed her, but there was no response—­it was too late.

Dave looked at the little figure prostrate in the snow, and despair for a time deprived him of all thought.  Then the lifelong habit of being practical asserted itself.  Unconsciousness from long exposure to cold, he knew, resembled death, but warmth and care would often revive the fluttering spark.  If there was a chance in a thousand, Dave was prepared to fight the world for it.

He lifted Anna tenderly and started back for the shed where he had fought Sanderson.  Frail as she was, it seemed to him, as he plunged through the drifts, that his strength would never hold out till they reached their destination.  Inch by inch he struggled for every step of the way, and the sweat dripped from him as if it had been August.  But he was more than rewarded, for once.  She opened her eyes—­she was not dead.

He found them all at the shed—­the Squire, his mother, Kate, the professor and Marthy.  There was no time for questions or speeches.  Every one bent with a will toward the common object of restoring Anna.  The professor ran for the doctor, the women chafed the icy hands and feet and the Squire built up a roaring fire.  Their efforts were finally rewarded and the big brown eyes opened and turned inquiringly from one to another.