A flake of snow fell on the shawl; she did not notice it.  Another rested upon her cheek; then she started.  She did not move much, but her face lifted itself slightly; her tear-swollen eyes were wide open; her lips were parted, as if her breath could hardly pass to and fro quickly enough to keep pace with agitated thought.  The snow had begun to come.  She knew well that it would go on falling, not to-day perhaps, nor to-morrow, but as certainly as time would bring the following days, so certainly the snow would fall, covering the frozen surface of the earth and water with foot above foot of powdery whiteness.  Far as she now was from the gay, active throng of fellow-creatures which she conceived as existing in the outer world, and with whom she longed to be, the snow would make that distance not only great, but impassable to her, unaided.

It was true that she had threatened Bates with flight by foot across the frozen lake; but she knew in truth that such departure was as dependent on the submission of his will to hers as was her going in the more natural way by boat the next day, for the track of her snow-shoes and the slowness of her journey upon them would always keep her within his power.

The girl contemplated the falling flakes and her own immediate future at the same moment.  The one notion clear to her mind was, that she must get away from that place before the cold had time to enchain the lake, or these flakes to turn the earth into a frozen sea.  Her one hope was in the boat that would be launched to carry her dead father.  She must go. She must go!

Youth would not be strong if it did not seek for happiness with all its strength, if it did not spurn pain with violence.  All the notions that went to make up this girl’s idea of pain were gathered from her present life of monotony and loneliness.  All the notions that went to make up her idea of happiness were culled from what she had heard and dreamed of life beyond her wilderness.  Added to this there was the fact that the man who had presumed to stand between her and the accomplishment of the first strong volition of her life had become intolerable to her—­whether more by his severity or by his kindliness she could not tell.  She folded her shawl-draped arms more strongly across her breast, and hugged to herself all the dreams and desires, hopes and dislikes, that had grown within her as she had grown in mind and stature in that isolated place.

How could she accomplish her will?

The flakes fell upon the copper gloss of her uncombed hair, on face and hands that reddened to the cold, and gathered in the folds of the shawl.  She stood as still as a waxen figure, if waxen figure could ever be true to the power of will which her pose betrayed.  When the ground was white with small dry flakes she moved again.  Her reverie, for lack of material, seemed to have come to nothing fresh.  She determined to prefer her request again to Bates.