He had come up silently in the soft snow, and she turned, a little startled, when be called her name.

“You, Philip!” she exclaimed, the colour deepening quickly in her cheeks.  “I thought you were with father in the big room.”

She had never looked lovelier to him.  From the top of her hooded head to the hem of her short skirt she was dressed in a soft and richly glowing red.  Her eyes shone gloriously this morning, and about her mouth there was a tenderness and a sweetness which had not been there the night before.  The lines that told of her strain and grief were gone.  She seemed like a different Josephine now, confessing in this first thrilling moment of their meeting that she, too, had been living in the memory of what had passed between them a few hours before.  And yet in the gentle welcome of her smile there was a mingling of sadness and of pathos that tempered Philip’s joy as he came to her and took her hands.

“My Josephine,” he cried softly.

She did not move as he bent down.  Again he felt the warm, sweet thrill of her lips.  He would have kissed her again, have clasped her close in his arms, but she drew away from him gently.

“I am glad you saw me—­and followed, Philip,” she said, her clear, beautiful eyes meeting his.  “It is a wonderful thing that has happened to us.  And we must talk about it.  We must understand.  I was on my way to the pack.  Will you come?”

She offered him her hand, so childishly confident, so free of her old restraint now, that he took it without a word and fell in at her side.  He had rushed to her tumultuously.  On his lips had been a hundred things that he had wanted to say.  He had meant to claim her in the full ardour of his love—­and now, quietly, without effort, she had worked a wonderful change in him.  It was as if their experience had not happened yesterday, but yesteryear; and the calm, sweet yielding of her lips to him again, the warm pressure of her hand, the illimitable faith in him that shone in her eyes, filled him with emotions which for a space made him speechless.  It was as if some wonderful spirit had come to them while they slept, so that now there was no necessity for explanation or speech.  In all the fulness of her splendid womanhood Josephine had accepted his love, and had given him her own in return.  Every fibre in his being told him that this was so.  And yet she had uttered no word of love, and he had spoken none of the things that had been burning in his soul.

They had gone but a few steps when Josephine paused close to the fallen trunk of a huge cedar.  With her mittened hands she brushed off the snow, seated herself, and motioned Philip to sit beside her.

“Let us talk here,” she said.  And then she asked, a little anxiously, “You left my father believing in you—­in us?”

“Fully,” replied Philip.  He took her face between his two hands and turned it up to him.  Her fingers clasped his arms.  But they made no effort to pull down the hands that held her eyes looking straight into his own.