wrapped in silence and lost to the world? Why had his brain and senses
lain fallow all these months, a vacuous vegetation, an empty
consciousness? Was it fate? Did it not seem probable that the Great
Machine had, in its automatic movement, tossed him up again on the shores
of Time because he had not fallen on the trap-door predestined for his
eternal exit?

It was clear to him that death by his own hand was futile, and that if
there were trap-doors set for him alone, it were well to wait until he
trod upon them and fell through in his appointed hour in the movement of
the Great Machine.

What to do--where to live--how to live?

He got slowly to his feet and took a step forward half blindly. The man
on the bench stirred. Crossing the room he dropped a hand on the man's
shoulder. "Open the blind, my friend."

Jo Portugais got to his feet quickly, eyes averted--he did not dare look
into Charley's face--and went over and drew back the deer-skin blind.
The clear, crisp sunlight of a frosty morning broke gladly into the room.
Charley turned and blew out the candle on the table where he had eaten,
then walked feebly to the window. Standing on the crest of the mountain
the hut looked down through a clearing, flanked by forest trees.

It was a goodly scene. The green and frosted foliage of the pines and
cedars; the flowery tracery of frost hanging like cobwebs everywhere; the
poudre sparkle in the air; the hills of silver and emerald sloping down
to the valley miles away, where the village clustered about the great old
parish church; the smoke from a hundred chimneys, in purple spirals,