At eleven he knocked on her door. She opened it. She wore her black wool gown and a black fur turban. Some of her pallor remained — traces of tears and bluish smears under both eyes. But her voice was steady.
"Could I see Dad a moment alone?"
"Of course."
She took his arm: they descended the stairs. There seemed to be many people about but she did not lift her eyes until her lover led her into the dance hall where Clinch lay smiling his mysterious smile.
Then Stormont left her alone there and closed the door.
* * * * *
In a terrible snow-storm they buried Mike Clinch on the spot he had selected, in order that he might keep a watchful eye on the trespassing ghost of old man Harrod.
It blew and stormed and stormed, and the thin, nasal voice of "Rev. Smatter" was utterly lost in the wind. The slanting laces of snow drove down on the casket, building a white mound over the flowers, blotting the hemlock boughs from sight.
There was no time to be lost now; the ground was freezing under a veering and bitter wind out of the west. Mr. Lyken's talented assistants had some difficulty in shaping the mound which snow began to make into a white and flawless monument.
The last slap of the spade rang with a metallic jar across the lake, where snow already blotted the newly forming film of ice; the human denizens of the wilderness filtered back into it one by one; "Rev. Smatter" got into his sleigh, plainly concerned about the road; Mr. Lyken betrayed unprofessional haste in loading his wagon with his talented assistants and starting for Ghost Lake.