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The three prisoners fell at last into silence. They sat in the dim, yellow-gray dusk and stared gloomily at the stove, growing each moment more repellent to one another. They met one another’s eyes at intervals with surprise and horror. The world without seemed utterly lost. Wailing voices sobbed in the pipe and at the windows. Sudden agonized shrieks came out of the blur of sound. The hours drew out to enormous length, though the day was short. The windows were furred deep with frost. At four o’clock it was dark, and, as he placed the lamp on the table, Bailey said,

“Well, Jim, we’re in for another night of it.”

Rivers leaped up as if he had been struck.

“Yes, curse it. It looks as if it would never let up again.” He raged up and down the room with the spirit of blasphemy burning in his eyes. “I wish I’d never seen the accursed country.”

“Will you go feed the team, or shall I?” Bailey quietly interrupted.

“I’ll go.” And he went out into the storm with savage resolution, while Bailey prepared supper.

“The storm is sure to end to-night,” he said, as they were preparing for sleep. As before, Blanche lay down upon the bed, Rivers took the bunk, and Bailey camped upon the floor, content to see his partner well bestowed.

Blanche, unable to sleep, lay for a long time listening to the storm, thinking disconnectedly on the past and the morrow. The strain upon her was twisting her toward insanity. The never-resting wind appalled her. It was like the iron resolution of the two men. She saw no end to this elemental strife. It was the cyclone of July frozen into snow, only more relentless, more persistent–a tornado of frost. It filled her with such awe as she had never felt before. It seemed as if she must not sleep–that she must keep awake for the sake of the little heart of which she had been made the guardian.

As she lay thus a sudden mysterious exaltation came upon her, and she grew warm and happy. She cared no longer for any man’s opinion of her. She was a mother, and God said to her, “Be peaceful and hopeful.” Light fell around her, and the pleasant odors of flowers. She looked through sunny vistas of oaks and apple-trees. Bees hummed in the clover, and she began to sing with them, and her low, humming song melted into the roar of the storm. She saw birds flying like butterflies over fields of daisies, and her song grew louder. It became sweet and maternal–full of lullaby cadences. As she lay thus, lovely and careless and sinless as a prattling babe, her eyes fixed upon the gleam of lights in the dark, a shaking hand was laid on her shoulder, and Rivers spoke in anxious voice:

“What is it, Blanche?–are you sick?”

She looked at him drowsily, and at last slowly said: “No, Jim–I am happy. See my baby there, in the sunshine! Isn’t she lovely?”

The man grew rigid with fear, and the hair of his head moved. He thought her delirious–dying, perhaps, of cold. He gathered her hands in his and fell upon his knees.

“What is it, dear? What do you mean?”

“Nothing, nothing,” she murmured.

“You’re sure you’re not worse? Can’t I help you?”

She did not reply, and he knelt there holding her hands until she sank into unmistakably quiet sleep.

He feared the unspeakable. He imagined her taken in premature childbirth, brought on by exposure and excitement, and, for the first time, he took upon himself the burden of his guilt. The thought of danger to her had not hitherto troubled him. For the poor, weak fool of a husband he cared nothing; but this woman was his, and the child to come was his. Birth–of which many men make a jest–suddenly took on majesty and terror, and the little life seemed about to enter a world of storm which filled him with a sense of duty new to him.