expanse showed serenely clear. Their horses soberly took the rise beyond
Shadrach Furnace and merged into the gathering dusk of the forest road.
A deep tranquillity had succeeded the tempest of Howat's emotions; it
would not continue, he knew; already the pressure of immense, new
difficulties gathered about him; but momentarily he ignored them. He
searched his feelings curiously.

The fact that struck him most sharply was that he was utterly without
remorse for what had occurred; it had been inevitable. He experienced
none of the fears against which Ludowika had exclaimed. He lingered over
no self-accusations, the reproach of adultery. He was absolutely unable
then to think of Felix Winscombe except as a person generally
unconcerned. If he repeated silently the term husband it was without
any sense of actuality; the satirical individual in the full bottomed
wig, now absent in Maryland, had no importance in the passionate
situation that had arisen between Ludowika and himself. Felix Winscombe
would of course have to be met, dealt with; but so would a great many
other exterior conditions.

Ludowika, in her linen mask, was enigmatic, a figure of mystery. A
complete silence continued between them; at times they ambled with his
hand on her body; then the inequalities of the road forced them apart.
The clouds dissolved, the sky was immaculate, green, with dawning stars
like dim white flowers. A faint odour of the already mouldering year
rose from the wet earth. Suddenly Ludowika dragged the mask from her
face. Quivering with intense feeling she cried:

"I'm glad, Howat! Howat, I'm glad!"

He contrived to put an arm about her, crush her to him for a precarious