Nothing remained of familiar surroundings.  This was, indeed, a new world.  At last Seagreave roused himself from his stunned contemplation of it and bent himself to the task of coaxing Pearl to lift her head and gaze upon it, too.

At last she did so, but at the sight of that bare and unfamiliar hillside her terrors again overcame her.  “Come,” she cried, dragging at his arm, “we must go—­go—­get away from here.  Dios!  Are you mad?  It is the end of the world.  Come quickly.”

“Where?” asked Seagreave gently.

“Home,” she cried wildly.  “To the church.  We can at least die blessedly.”

Seagreave shook his head, his eyes on that white wall—­that snow mountain which rose from the edge of the crevasse and seemed almost to touch the sky.  “Listen, Pearl,” he spoke more earnestly now, as if to force some appreciation of the situation upon her mind.  “This cabin is the only thing upon the mountain.  The avalanche has carried everything else away.”

“Not my father’s cabin, too,” she peered down the hill curiously, yet fearfully, in a fascinated horror.  “Oh, but it is true.  It is gone.  Oh, what shall we do?  But we must get down to the camp.  Come, come.”

But for once Seagreave seemed scarcely to hear her.  He had leaned out from the sheltering wall and was scanning with a measuring and speculative eye the white heap that rose from the edge of the canon and seemed almost to touch the lowering and sullen sky.

“Thank God, the camp is safe,” he murmured.  “The canon must have saved it, or else it would have been wiped off the earth just as Gallito’s cabin has been.  But it has swept the bridge away, of course.”

“Oh, come.”  Pearl dragged at his sleeve.  “I can’t stay here.  I am afraid.”

“Pearl,” and there were both anxiety and tenderness in his voice.  “You must understand.  Try to realize that there is no way to get down.”

“But there must be some way,” she insisted, “with snow-shoes—­”

He shook his head gently but definitely.  “There is no way.  We might as well face it.”  He cast another long look at the sky.  “It is the season for the thaws, the big thaws, but, even so, it will take time to melt down that mountain out there.  No, it is useless to argue,” as Pearl began again her futile rebellion against the inexorable forces of nature, “but what am I thinking of?” in quick self-reproach.  “You must not stay out here in the cold any longer.  Come.”  He threw open the cabin door.

But if Pearl heard him she gave no sign, but still leaned weakly, almost inertly, against the walls of the cabin, gazing down the hillside with dazed and still frightened eyes.

Seeing her condition, Seagreave wasted no more words, but lifted her in his arms and carried her into the room they had so recently left.  There he placed her in a chair and pushed it near the fire and she sat shivering and cowering, her hands outstretched to the blaze.