She had reached the highway at last. She could see where, some distance
yet beyond, the gully struck black across the snow-covered fields. The
road ran above it, zigzag along the hill-side. She thought, as her horse
galloped up the path, she could see the very spot where Douglas was
lying. Not dead,--she knew he was not dead! She came to it now. How
deathly still it was! As she tied the horse to the fence, and climbed
down the precipice through the snow, she was dimly conscious that the
air was warmer, that the pure moonlight was about her, genial, hopeful.
A startled snow-bird chirped to her, as she passed. Why, it was a happy
promise! Why should it not be happy? He was not dead, and she had leave
to come to him.

Yet, before she gained the level field, the pulse in her body was weak
and sick, and her eyes were growing blind. She did not see him. Half
covered by snow, she found his gray horse, dead, killed by the fall.
Palmer was gone. The gully was covered with muddy ice; there was a split
in it, and underneath, the black water curdled and frothed. Had he
fallen there? Was that thing that rose and fell in the roots of the old
willow his dead hand? There was a floating gleam of yellow in the
water,--it looked like hair. Dode put her hand to her hot breast, shut
her dry lips. He was not dead! God could not lie to her!

Stooping, she went over the ground again, an unbroken waste of white:
until, close to the water's edge, she found the ginseng-weeds torn and
trampled down. She never afterwards smelt their unclean, pungent odor,
without a sudden pang of the smothered pain of this night coming back to
her. She knelt, and found foot-marks,--one booted and spurred. She knew
it: what was there he had touched that she did not know? He was alive:
she did not cry out at this, or laugh, as her soul went up to God,--only
thrust her hand deep into the snow where his foot had been, with a