The note of authority in his voice seemed to subdue her, and when he had jumped from the sleigh she let him help her out, saying only, with a vague feint of reluctance:  “But there isn’t a sled round anywheres.”

“Yes, there is!  Right over there under the spruces.”  He threw the bearskin over the sorrel, who stood passively by the roadside, hanging a meditative head.  Then he caught Mattie’s hand and drew her after him toward the sled.

She seated herself obediently and he took his place behind her, so close that her hair brushed his face.  “All right, Matt?” he called out, as if the width of the road had been between them.

She turned her head to say:  “It’s dreadfully dark.  Are you sure you can see?”

He laughed contemptuously:  “I could go down this coast with my eyes tied!” and she laughed with him, as if she liked his audacity.  Nevertheless he sat still a moment, straining his eyes down the long hill, for it was the most confusing hour of the evening, the hour when the last clearness from the upper sky is merged with the rising night in a blur that disguises landmarks and falsifies distances.

“Now!” he cried.

The sled started with a bound, and they flew on through the dusk, gathering smoothness and speed as they went, with the hollow night opening out below them and the air singing by like an organ.  Mattie sat perfectly still, but as they reached the bend at the foot of the hill, where the big elm thrust out a deadly elbow, he fancied that she shrank a little closer.

“Don’t be scared, Matt!” he cried exultantly, as they spun safely past it and flew down the second slope; and when they reached the level ground beyond, and the speed of the sled began to slacken, he heard her give a little laugh of glee.

They sprang off and started to walk back up the hill.  Ethan dragged the sled with one hand and passed the other through Mattie’s arm.

“Were you scared I’d run you into the elm?” he asked with a boyish laugh.

“I told you I was never scared with you,” she answered.

The strange exaltation of his mood had brought on one of his rare fits of boastfulness.  “It is a tricky place, though.  The least swerve, and we’d never ha’ come up again.  But I can measure distances to a hair’s-breadth-always could.”

She murmured:  “I always say you’ve got the surest eye...”

Deep silence had fallen with the starless dusk, and they leaned on each other without speaking; but at every step of their climb Ethan said to himself:  “It’s the last time we’ll ever walk together.”

They mounted slowly to the top of the hill.  When they were abreast of the church he stooped his head to her to ask:  “Are you tired?” and she answered, breathing quickly:  “It was splendid!”

With a pressure of his arm he guided her toward the Norway spruces.  “I guess this sled must be Ned Hale’s.  Anyhow I’ll leave it where I found it.”  He drew the sled up to the Varnum gate and rested it against the fence.  As he raised himself he suddenly felt Mattie close to him among the shadows.