Maria shivered as she left the sleigh, and hardly noticed Chien, barking and gambolling a welcome, or the children who called to her from the door-step.

The world seemed strangely empty, for this evening at least.

Love was snatched away, and they forbade remembrance.

She went swiftly into the house without looking about her, conscious of a new dread and hatred for the bleak land, the forest's eternal shade, the snow and the cold,--for all those things she had lived her life amongst, which now had wounded her..