with it savagely. She thought she had determined; she would give him up.
But--he was coming! he was coming! Why, she forgot everything in that,
as if it were delirium. She hid her face in her hands. It seemed as if
the world, the war, faded back, leaving this one human soul alone with
herself. She sat silent, the fire charring lower into glooming red
shadow. You shall not look into the passion of a woman's heart.

She rose at last, with the truth, as Gaunt had taught it to her, full
before her, that it would be crime to make compact with sin or a sinner.
She went out on the porch, looking no longer to the road, but up to the
uncertain sky. Poor, simple Dode! So long she had hid the thought of
this man in her woman's breast, clung to it for all strength, all
tenderness! It stood up now before her,--Evil. Gaunt told her to-night
that to love him was to turn her back on the cross, to be traitor to
that blood on Calvary. Was it? She found no answer in the deadened sky,
or in her own heart. She would give him up, then? She looked up, her
face slowly whitening. "I love him," she said, as one who had a right to
speak to God. That was all. So, in old times, a soul from out of the
darkness of His judgments faced the Almighty, secure in its own right:
"Till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me."

Yet Dode was a weak woman; the trial went home to the very marrow. She
stood by the wooden railing, gathering the snow off of it, putting it to
her hot forehead, not knowing what she did. Her brain was dull,
worn-out, she thought; it ached. She wished she could sleep, with a
vacant glance at the thick snow-clouds, and turning to go in. There was
a sudden step on the path,--he was coming! She would see him once
more,--once! God could not deny her that! her very blood leaping into
hot life.