"I think we have the grandest storms at Ridgeley that visit our
continent," resumed Mabel thoughtfully. "I suppose because the house
stands so high. The wind never sounds to me anywhere else as it does
here on winter nights."
Yielding to the weird attraction of the scene invoked by her fancy,
she arose and walked to the window at the eastern extremity of the
hall, pulling aside the curtain that she might peer into the wild
darkness. The crimson light of the burning logs and the lamp rays
threw a strongly defined shadow of her figure upon the piazza floor,
distinct as that projected by a solar microscope upon a sheeted
wall; sent long, searching rays into the misty fall of the snow,
past the spot from which she had her last glimpse of Frederic
Chilton, so many, many months agone, showing the black outline of
the gate where he had looked back to lift his hat to her.
What was there in the wintry night and thick tempest to recall the
warmth and odor of that moist September morning, the smell of the
dripping roses overhead, the balmy humidity of every breath she
drew? What in her present companion that reminded her of the loving
clasp that had thrilled her heart into palpitation? the earnest
depth of the eyes that held hers during the one sharp, yet sweet
moment of parting--eyes that pledged the fealty of her lover's soul,
and demanded hers then and forever? His conscience might have been
sullied by crimes more heinous than those charged upon him by her
brother and his friends; he might--he HAD--let her go easily, as one
resigns his careless hold upon a paltry, unprized toy; but when her
hand had rested thus in his, and his passionate regards penetrated
her soul, he loved her, alone and entirely! She would fold this
conviction to her torpid heart for a little while before she turned
herself away finally from the memories of that love-summer and
battle-autumn of her existence. If it aroused in the chilled thing
some slight pangs of sentiency, it would do her no hurt to realize
through these that it had once been alive.
She saw a shadow approaching to join itself to hers upon the
whitened floor without, before Mr. Dorrance interrupted her reverie
by words.
"The fury of the tempest you admire proves its paternity," he said,
with a manifest effort at lightness. "It emanates from the vast
magazines of frost, snow, and wintry wind that lie far to the
north-east even of my home, and THAT is in a region you would think
drear and inhospitable after the more clement airs of of your native
State."