When he reached the pavement of the outskirts once more he was obliged to take the middle of the street, to avoid the treacherous films of ice that were beginning to glaze the sidewalks.

Yet this very inclemency, added to the usual Sabbath seclusion, had left the streets deserted.

He was obliged to proceed more slowly, but he met no one and could pursue his bewildering thoughts unchecked.

As he passed between the lines of cold, colorless houses, from which all light and life had vanished, it seemed to him that their occupants were dead as his love, or had fled their ruined houses as he had.

Why should he remain?
Yet what was his duty now as a man--as a Christian?
His eye fell on the hideous facade of the church he was passing--her church! He gave a bitter laugh and stumbled on again.
With one of the gusts he fancied he heard a familiar sound--the rattling of buggy wheels over the stiffening road.