At first he found himself impeded by low
bush. Then the plain became more open, and he knew that there was
nothing but the night and the snow to shut out his vision ahead. Still
he had no motive, no reason for what he did. The snow would cover his
tracks before morning. There would be no harm done, and he might get a
glimpse of the light, of _her_ light.
It came on his vision with a suddenness that set his heart leaping. A
dog barked ahead of him, so near that he stopped in his tracks, and then
suddenly there shot through the snow-gloom the bright gleam of a lamp.
Before he had taken another breath he was aware of what had happened. A
curtain had been drawn aside in the chaos ahead. He was almost on the
walls of the post--and the light gleamed from high, up, from the head of
the stair!
For a space he stood still, listening and watching. There was no other
light, no other sound after the barking of the dog. About him the snow
fell with fluttering noiselessness and it filled him with a sensation of
safety. The sharpest eyes could not see him, the keenest ears could not
hear him--and he advanced again until before him there rose out of the
gloom a huge shadowy mass that was blacker than the night itself.
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