When the horse was brought she went out into the night. The storm of the upper hills had descended to the lower; the wind was blowing icily and strong, the snow was falling fast, but on the lower lands it did not freeze as it fell, and riding was possible, though at a slow pace from the great darkness. She knew every step of the way through her own woods and up to the spurs of the Glöckner. She rode on till the ascent grew too steep for any animal; then she abandoned the horse to one of her attendants, took her alpenstock and went on her way towards the Adler Spitze on foot, the men with their lanterns lighting the ground in front of her. It was wild weather and grew wilder the nearer it grew to dawn. There was danger, at every step from slippery frozen ground, from thin ice that might break over bottomless abysses. The snow was driven in her face, and the wind tore madly at her clothes. But she was used to the mountains and held on steadily, refusing the rope which Otto entreated her to take and permit him to fasten to his loins. They kept to the right paths, for their strong lights enabled them to see whither they went. Once they crept along a narrow ledge where a man could barely stand. The ascent was long and weary in the teeth of the weather; it tried even the stout jägers; but she scarcely felt the force of the wind, the chill of the black frost.
No woman but one used as she was to measure her strength with her native Alps could have lived through that night, which tried hardly even the hunters born and bred amidst the snow summits. By day the ascent hither was difficult and dangerous after the summer months, but after nightfall the sturdiest mountaineer dreamed not of facing it. But on those heights above her, in the dark yonder, beneath the clouds, were her husband and her child. That knowledge sufficed to nerve her limbs to preternatural power, and the men who followed her were loyal and devoted to her service; they would have lain down to die at her word.
When her body seemed to sink with the burden of fatigue and cold, she looked up into the blackness of the air, and thought that those she sought were there, and fancied that already she heard their voices. Then she gathered new strength and crept onward and upward, her hands and feet clinging to the bare rock, the smooth ice, as a swallow clings to a house wall.
She had issued from a battle more bitter with her own soul; and had conquered.
At last they neared the refuge built by and named from her, and set amidst the desolation of the snow-fields. She signed to her men to stay without, and walking onward alone drew near the heavy door.
She opened it a little way, paused a moment, drawing her breath with effort; then looked into the cabin. It was a mere hut of two chambers made of pitch pine, and lighted by a single window. There was no light but from the pallid day without, which had barely broken. Before the fire of burning logs was a nest of hay, and in it lay the child, sleeping a deep and healthful sleep, his hands folded on his breast, his face flushed with warmth and recovered life, his long lashes dark upon his cheeks.
His father was stretched still as a statue on the truckle-bed of the keeper who watched beside him.
The day had now broken, clear, pale, cold; the faint rose of sunrise was behind the snow peaks of the Glöckner, and an alpenflühevogel was trilling and tripping on the frozen ground. From a distant unseen hamlet far below there came a faint sound of morning bells.
She thrust the door further open and entered. She made a gesture to the keeper, who started up with a low obeisance, to go without. She fastened the latch upon him; then, without waking the sleeping child, went up to her husband's bed. His eyes were closed; he did not notice the opening and shutting of the door; he was still and white as the snow without; he looked weary and exhausted.
At sight of him all the great love she had once borne him sprang up in all its normal strength; her heart swelled with unspeakable emotion; she stood and gazed on him with thirsty eyes tired of their long denial.