At last she came out of the woods upon a hill-side covered with the tangled undergrowth that follows a fire upon the hills. The trunk of an old cedar tree, blackened and charred to the roots, warned her of a close approach to the river, and in the distance she saw a wreath of dim smoke curling up through the snow. Leaving the cedar-tree on her right, Lina toiled up the hill, and crossed a ravine darkened with great white pines and spruce trees. At the bottom, a mountain stream broke through ten thousand fairy chains of ice, and melting the pearly foam of the snow as it fell, sent it leaping downward in a torrent that seemed half diamonds, half pearl drifts, under which the pure waters went singing softly on their way to the river.
Lina did not heed the gentle warning of the waters, but sprang forward in wild haste. Her step shattered the glittering ice right and left, and the cold water gushed over her feet and garments, but she moved on without pause, climbing up the banks of the stream till a smooth platform of snow, and a house whose windows were fitfully revealed by pale gleams of light, evidently from a half buried fire, stood before her.
She drew near to the house, standing there in the darkness, and began to stagger, for now the unnatural strength which had nerved her, gave way. The icy waters of the brook froze into fetters, around her ankles, and she fell, without a sigh or moan, with her face toward the earth.
The poor little hound, after pulling at her garments with piteous whines, set up a howl that rang mournfully over the snow waste around. Lina did not move. She was sensible, but utterly strengthless. All that she had suffered was lost in a single desire to be still, and sleep or die.
The howl of her poor, shivering companion, so sharp and plaintive in reality came to her ear as if from a great distance, and for once she struggled to call Fair-Star by name, and tell him where she was, but her lips gave forth no sound, and when the dog set up another cry, Lina did not hear it.
CHAPTER LX.
THE DARK-HOUSE.
In less than an hour after Lina French fell so helplessly upon the snow drifted around that old house, the storm swept by, and forcing the leaden clouds aside, came the moon, followed by ten thousand stars, that shone calmly and pure in the frosty atmosphere. Directly, bright scintillations of frost arose upon the white waste of snow, and the whole earth seemed crusted with diamond dust. The midnight was supremely beautiful, and the stillness around that old house had something that seemed holy in it, but now and then a faint howl broke over the glittering hills, which gave warning that sorrow, pain, and, perhaps, death were near.
A woman coming up from the shore heard the cry, and stopped to listen. She, too, was weary and panting from a toilsome struggle with the storm. But a cloak of soft Russian sables and a hood of crimson silk protected her as far as it was possible from the weather. Still her feet sunk heavily in the snow at each step, and her footprints filled with shadows as she passed on, blackening her way over the universal whiteness that covered the earth. Thus it had always been in her life—that woman never moved without leaving shadows and darkness behind her.
She came forward, guided by the wail of Fair-Star, tramping down the snow and breathing heavily, from her up-hill toil.