He went to the door, opened it, and stood looking out. Against a wan daylight the snow was falling noiselessly and steadily.
"Everything goes on," he said.... "Relentlessly...."
§ 4
That was as far as they had got when the storms ceased and they came out again into an air inexpressibly fresh and sharp and sweet, and into a world blindingly clean and golden white under the rays of the morning sun.
"We will build a fire out here," said Marjorie; "make a great pile. There is no reason at all why we shouldn't live outside all through the day in such weather as this."
§ 5
One morning Trafford found the footmarks of some catlike creature in the snow near the bushes where he was accustomed to get firewood; they led away very plainly up the hill, and after breakfast he took his knife and rifle and snowshoes and went after the lynx—for that he decided the animal must be. There was no urgent reason why he should want to kill a lynx, unless perhaps that killing it made the store shed a trifle safer; but it was the first trail of any living thing for many days; it promised excitement; some primordial instinct perhaps urged him.
The morning was a little overcast, and very cold between the gleams of wintry sunshine. "Good-bye, dear wife!" he said, and then as she remembered afterwards came back a dozen yards to kiss her. "I'll not be long," he said. "The beast's prowling, and if it doesn't get wind of me I ought to find it in an hour." He hesitated for a moment. "I'll not be long," he repeated, and she had an instant's wonder whether he hid from her the same dread of loneliness that she concealed. Or perhaps he only knew her secret. Up among the tumbled rocks he turned, and she was still watching him. "Good-bye!" he cried and waved, and the willow thickets closed about him.
She forced herself to the petty duties of the day, made up the fire from the pile he had left for her, set water to boil, put the hut in order, brought out sheets and blankets to air and set herself to wash up. She wished she had been able to go with him. The sky cleared presently, and the low December sun lit all the world about her, but it left her spirit desolate.
She did not expect him to return until mid-day, and she sat herself down on a log before the fire to darn a pair of socks as well as she could. For a time this unusual occupation held her attention and then her hands became slow and at last inactive, and she fell into reverie. She thought at first of her children and what they might be doing, in England across there to the east it would be about five hours later, four o'clock in the afternoon, and the children would be coming home through the warm muggy London sunshine with Fraulein Otto to tea. She wondered if they had the proper clothes, if they were well; were they perhaps quarrelling or being naughty or skylarking gaily across the Park. Of course Fraulein Otto was all right, quite to be trusted, absolutely trustworthy, and their grandmother would watch for a flushed face or an irrational petulance or any of the little signs that herald trouble with more than a mother's instinctive alertness. No need to worry about the children, no need whatever.... The world of London opened out behind these thoughts; it was so queer to think that she was in almost the same latitude as the busy bright traffic of the autumn season in Kensington Gore; that away there in ten thousand cleverly furnished drawing-rooms the ringing tea things were being set out for the rustling advent of smart callers and the quick leaping gossip. And there would be all sorts of cakes and little things; for a while her mind ran on cakes and little things, and she thought in particular whether it wasn't time to begin cooking.... Not yet. What was it she had been thinking about? Ah! the Solomonsons and the Capeses and the Bernards and the Carmels and the Lees. Would they talk of her and Trafford? It would be strange to go back to it all. Would they go back to it all? She found herself thinking intently of Trafford.