There was another blast of the horn, then a wild rush of sure-footed horses down the hill, and the coach was past, going towards Ware.  Madelon had caught only a glimpse of the frost-white driver on the box, a man beside him shrugged up miserably in great-coat and comforter, with back rounded and head bent against the cold, and some chilled faces in the windows.  Some of the passengers had come from Wolverton, ten miles past Kingston, and one might freeze to death on a long stage journey a day like that.  There was, perhaps, less danger in a walk, but there was danger in that should the cold increase, and it did increase hourly.  Madelon’s feet grew more and more numb.  She stamped them from time to time, but more from instinct than from any real appreciation of the discomfort they gave her.  So wrought up was she with zeal that it seemed she might have set out to walk through a fiery furnace as soon as through this frozen waste, and perhaps have had her flesh consumed to ashes, with her soul still intent upon its one purpose.  All thought of her own self, save as an instrument to save the life of the man she loved, was gone out of the girl.  Jealousy was purged out of her; all resentment for faithlessness, all longing for possession were gone.  She bore in her heart the greatest love of her life as she sped along down the frozen road to Kingston.

The last two miles of the way poor Madelon struggled hard to cover.  She drew short, gasping breaths, as if she were on a high mountain-top.  The cold strengthened as the daylight waned.  The very air seemed frozen and resolved into a cutting diamond-dust of frost.  Suddenly Madelon awoke to the fear that she could not walk much farther.  She had eaten nothing since morning; the cold and fatigue were consuming her life as the flame consumes the wick of the lamp when the oil is lacking.

“I must get there!” she said to herself.  She stamped her numb feet desperately.  She beat herself pitilessly with her stiff hands.  She set forth on a run towards Kingston, and quickened her blood a little in that way, although she panted and fairly gasped for breath.

She drew a sigh of relief when she gained the last rise in the road, and the town of Kingston lay before her a mile in the valley.  It was growing dark and the village lights were coming out when she had passed the straggling farms and come into the little centre of the town where the stores, the meeting-houses, and the tavern were grouped.

The village main street looked almost deserted.  There was only one sleigh in sight, drawn up in front of the store.  The horse was well covered with a buffalo-skin and an old bed-quilt in addition, which his master’s wife had doubtless provided on account of the terrible cold.

As Madelon reached the store a man came out with a molasses-jug in hand and arms clasping parcels, which he began stowing away under the seat of the sleigh.  Madelon went up to him.  “Can you tell me where Mr. Otis lives?” said she.  She could scarcely enunciate.  Her very tongue seemed stiff with the cold.