sheer consciousness of power.

The gypsy, chilled and subdued, confused by forces she could not
understand, fell back a step or two and Pearl seized this opportunity to
slip away, calling a careless good-by over her shoulder.

But the depression which had touched her from the time she wakened now
lay heavier on her spirit. Her mind reverted to the cards of ill omen
and she shivered with a faint chill of apprehension. And as she walked
on it seemed to her that the atmosphere was in tune with her mood.

The air was soft, and yet sharp enough to quicken the color in her
cheeks, but still indefinably wistful. The song of the wind among the
pines, that mountain wind which never ceases to blow, had a sort of
sighing pensiveness in its falling cadences. The deep, blue sky dreamed
over the russet tree tops and the yellow leaves filled the forest with
their flying gold.

And the spirit of the year seemed to have entered into Pearl. She was as
wistful as the day, as pensive as the sighing wind. She arrived early at
her destination. The sun lay warm in her little bower of encircling
pines and she sat down on a fallen log to await Hanson's coming. He
could not take her by surprise for, through a little opening in the
trees, she could see the trail, it was in plain view.

Sitting down then to wait, she rested her elbow on her knee and her chin
in the palm of her hand. It seemed as if the power of anticipation were
gone from her. She wondered dully at her own languor, not only of body,
but of mind. In a few moments she would see again the man whom she had
passionately loved, and in parting from whom she had not dreamed it to