Don't try to see me ever any more. If you do, it will only make my life a hell on earth.
That had been the tangible end of Arthur's romance. But the intangible ends were infinite and not yet. His whole nature had changed. He had suffered and could no longer bear to inflict pain.
He lifted his head and looked up a little slope of snow. Near the top, wonderfully rosy and smiling, sat his culprit sisters. He had forgotten why he had come. He smiled in his sudden embarrassment.
"Don't shoot, colonel," called Gay, "and we'll come down."
"Promise, then," he said, "that you'll never be naughty again."
"We promise," they said.
And they trudged back to camp, with jokes and laughter and three very sharp appetites.