fire. She had fainted. After an hour he left her and went out into
the night. The body of Edward Crown was lying where it had fallen.
It was covered by a thin blanket of snow. For a long time he stood
gazing down upon the lifeless shape. The snow cut his face, the
wind threshed about his coatless figure, but he heeded them not. He
was muttering to himself. At last he turned to re-enter the house.
His daughter was standing in the open doorway.

"Is--is that Edward down there?" she asked, in weak, lifeless tones.
She seemed dull, witless, utterly without realization.

"Go back in the house," he whispered, as he drew back from her in
a sort of horror,--horror that had not struck him in the presence
of the dead.

"Is that Edward?" she insisted, her voice rising to a queer,
monotonous wail.

"I told you to stay in the house," he said. "I told you I would look
after him, didn't I? Go back, Alix,--that's a good girl. Your--your
daddy will--Oh, my God! Don't look at me like that!"

"Is he dead?" she whispered, still standing very straight in
the middle of the doorway. She was not looking at the inert thing
on the walk below, but into her father's eyes. He did not, could
not answer. He seemed frozen stiff. She went on in the same dull,
whispered monotone. "I begged him to let me come alone. I begged
him to let me see you first. But he would come. He brought me all
the way from the West and he--he was not afraid of you. You have
done what you said you would do. You did not give him a chance.