of what she heard. But after a rigid hour she faltered away, stumbled
across the kitchen and out into the snow.

There, in the broad light of the setting sun, Pete rhythmically bent
and straightened over his saw. The tool sang with a hissing, ringing
rhythm, and the young man drove it with a lithe, long swing of body,
forward and back, forward and back, in alternate postures of untiring
grace. The air was not cold. There was the cloudy softness premonitory
of a spring storm; the sun glowed like a dying fire through a long,
narrow rift in the shrouded west. Pete had thrown aside his coat and
drawn in his belt. The collar of his flannel shirt was open and turned
back; his head was bare. The bright gold of his short hair, the
scarlet of his cheeks, the vivid blue of his brooding eyes, made
shocks of color against the prevailing whiteness. Even the indigo
of his overalls and the dark gray of his shirt stood out with a
curious value of tint and texture. His bare hands and forearms
glowed. He was whistling with a boy's vigor and a bird's sweetness.

Bella caught Pete's arm as it bent for one of the strong forward
sweeps. He stopped, let go of his saw, and turned to her, smiling.

Then--the smile gone: "What's wrong?"

Her eyes flamed in her pale, tense face. "We've got to stop it, Pete,"
she said. "It's horrible!"

"What? Don't stand out here with those bare arms, Bella." He was
pulling his own shirt-sleeves down over his glistening bronze forearms
as he spoke.