CHAPTER XIX
With a fond hope that he would receive word of the Wainwrights, Donald eagerly awaited the coming of each mail; but after a month of disappointment he became less sanguine, and threw himself desperately into work in a vain attempt to allay his heartache.
During the long winter the mill continued operations in spite of heavy snows, the roads being kept open by the continual traffic.
Janet came twice with gay parties to enjoy the ski-ing and snowshoeing. She found that she loved Donald, and decided that any uncertainty as to his past was as nothing when weighed against her need of him. Bitterly she reproached herself for allowing her pride to estrange him from her, and with all the arts of a beautiful and cultured woman she sought to regain the power she once held over him.
On one occasion, when Janet mentioned his “wood-sprite,” she saw a rapt look in his eyes and caught her breath sharply. The very thought of losing him stabbed her like a knife-thrust.
With the coming of March a change came over the earth. Winter shivered and reluctantly loosed his hold. Gentle showers and warm winds from the south honeycombed the ice on the lake; snowdrifts faded away, and the frost-bound soil gave forth earthy odours to replace the keen smell of the snow.
One morning a song-sparrow under Donald’s window sent out its sweet “chip-chip-che-char-che-wiss-wiss,” and from the top of a swaying alder a wren carolled his joy of living in full-throated tones that said that spring was here. Stirred by the warmth and cleaving buds, the frogs came from the mud, where they had lain dormant all winter, and with swelling throats and bulging cheeks sent out their cheerful “k’tun, k’chunk.”
Mists covered the lake, and in an open spot near the mouth of the creek a flock of ducks disported themselves happily. The sun grew higher with every dawn, gaining strength each day until its warming energy spread the beauty of colour and fragrance over all.
One afternoon, when the air pulsated with the song of birds, and newly-opened buds burdened the atmosphere with perfume, Donald walked up the hill to Wainwright’s cabin.
Scores of birds, returned from their yearly pilgrimage to the south, flitted about the deserted buildings, but there was no golden-haired girl with a welcoming smile to greet them. Rivulets from the melting snows had gouged channels in the once neatly kept plots of wild flowers, and the roof of one of the smaller huts had fallen in.