Good-night!" The door closed; the whispering voices of the girls faded from the corridor; the lights were lowered in the central hall, only the red Cyclopean eye of an enormous columnar stove, like a lighthouse, gleamed through the darkness.

Outside, the silent night sparkled, glistened, and finally paled.

Towards morning, having invested the sturdy wooden outer walls of the house and filmed with delicate tracery every available inch of window pane, it seemed stealthily to invade the house itself, stilling and chilling it as it drew closer around its central heart of warmth and life.

Only once the frigid stillness was broken by the opening of a door and steps along the corridor.

This was preceded by an acrid smell of burning bark.
It was subtle enough to permeate the upper floor and the bedroom of Marie du Page, who was that night a light and nervous sleeper.