fair face sinking amid the hungry ice beset him. Then he perceived what would be lost to him, if she were lost.
The thought of Death placed itself between him and Love. If the love had been merely a pretty remembrance of a charming woman, he might have dismissed his fancied drowning scene with a little emotion of regret. Now, the fancy was an agony.
He had too much power over himself to entertain it long. But the grisly thought came uninvited, returned undesired, and no resolute Avaunt, even backed by that magic wand, a cigar, availed to banish it wholly.
The sky cleared cold at eleven o’clock. A sharp wind drew through the Highlands. As the train rattled round the curve below the tunnel through Skerrett’s Point, Wade could see his skating course of Christmas-Day with the ladies. Firm ice, glazed smooth by the sudden chill after the rain, filled the Cove and stretched beyond the Point into the river.
It was treacherous stuff, beautiful to the eyes of a skater, but sure to be weak, and likely to break up any moment and join the deliberate headlong drift of the masses in mid-current.
Wade almost dreaded lest his vision should suddenly realize itself, and he should see his enthusiastic companion of the other day sailing gracefully along to certain death.
Nothing living, however, was in sight, except here and there a crow, skipping about in the floating ice.
