At length, on a bright and glittering day, when it seemed the storms had finally abandoned their enmity, they climbed slowly up the long slopes to Simpson’s Pass, and stood at noon high above a wide and wonderful world of snow, with white mountains succeeding one another, range on range, as far as their eyes could reach before them and behind. And that afternoon, as they toiled around the shoulder of Big Bear Mountain, they stopped and gazed,––Marion with tears streaming down her cheeks, and Haig with his hands clenched tightly at his sides. For there, still far away below them, but 329 there beyond all mistake, lay Paradise Park, very white and still and glittering in the sun; and off at the right was Thunder Mountain, squatting among the silver peaks, its sullen head half hidden by gray-black clouds.
CHAPTER XXIX
GHOSTS
The lamp had not been lighted in the sitting-room at Huntington’s, but the pitch log blazing in the great fireplace reddened the farthest corners of the room, and flushed the somber faces of Seth and Claire. Their habit, in these days of grief, was to sit the winter evenings through almost in silence, their self-reproaches long since spent, their hopes turned to ashes, which Claire alone tried sometimes to fan into a glow. They had eaten their supper before twilight, without speech, and then, as always, waited wearily for sleep.
“It will be three months and two weeks to-morrow,” she said, without looking away from the fire.
“Yes,” answered Huntington.
“Isn’t it possible she may have reached––”
“It’s no use, Claire, thinking such things.”