The gateway was indeed their only outlet to the plain below.

She looked back at the falling snow beyond until she fancied she could see in the crossing and recrossing lines the moving meshes of a fateful web woven around them by viewless but inexorable fingers.
Half frightened, she was turning away, when she perceived, a few paces distant, the figure of the stranger, "Ned," also apparently absorbed in the gloomy prospect.

He was wrapped in the clinging folds of a black serape braided with silver; the broad flap of a slouch hat beaten back by the wind exposed the dark, glistening curls on his white forehead.

He was certainly very handsome and picturesque, and that apparently without effort or consciousness.

Neither was there anything in his costume or appearance inconsistent with his surroundings, or, even with what Kate could judge were his habits or position.