Read CHAPTER LIX - A STORM IN THE WOODS of Mabel's Mistake , free online book, by Ann S. Stephens, on ReadCentral.com.

And Lina wandered off, deep, deep into the woods her head aching with overcharged thought, her heart lying wounded and cold in her bosom. Hour after hour she toiled on, wild with the pain of her new sorrow. It seemed to her that intense action could only bring rest. Thus, she clambered hill after hill, drew herself up the steep face of many a rock that, at another time, would have defied her efforts, and waded, knee-deep, in drifts of dead leaves that choked up the hollows. Sometimes she would stop suddenly, out of breath, and panting with the fatigue of her aimless exertions. But after looking wildly about, as if in fear of pursuit, she would dart off again, perhaps retreading the rough path she had left. At last, she sat down, exhausted, at the foot of a tree, and looked around in bitter despair as she saw the woods darken overhead, and felt a soft storm of snow flakes floating dreamily over her.

The poor child was numb and cold. Her very breath seemed turning to ice upon her lips. But for the little hound that crept up to her bosom, and lay patiently there, with its slender head laid upon her shoulder, and its limbs trembling with the cold, she would have perished. But the warmth from this little animal’s body kept the vitality in her poor heart, and instead of death, a drowsiness fell upon her, which would perhaps have ended in a wakeless sleep. But just as she was sinking away into that deathly torpor from which few are aroused, a female figure came, floating like a dark bird of prey, through the storm, now obscured by the thick interlacing of naked branches, and again dimmed in her approach by the veil of virgin snow-flakes that filled the air.

The hound lifted its slender head, gave a faint whine and lay down again motionless, but with his vigilant eyes on the shadowy figure that approached. That pale face was evidently known to the dog, or he would not have rested there so peacefully, though it moved through the falling snow, like a phantom which might disappear with the slightest sound.

Close to the prostrate girl it came that sinister, white face and the figure stooped from under the folds of its black and ample cloak, to whisper in the cold ear of Lina French.

“Go to the house upon the hill-side. There your mother is waiting for you.”

Lina struggled like one aroused from the thrall of a nightmare. The word mother had broken up the ice at her heart. She pushed the hound from her bosom, and staggering to her feet, looked to the right and left. No one was near. The pale quiver of the snow flakes, and the naked tree boughs, trembling and sighing together, was all that she could make out. But the word mother still sounded in her ear, and the sentence uttered to her sleep grew trumpet-toned, and seemed wailed back to her by the storm.

“‘The house upon the hill-side!’ where is it?” she cried. “Which way shall I go? Answer me, thou voice of the storm! is it north or south, to the right or left? Answer me or if I am indeed mad, be silent and let me die!”

Then, through the drifting snow flakes that settled down heavier and heavier, there came a voice clear and musical, like the low tones of a flute, half-singing, half-speaking, which might have been the disguise of some voice that feared detection.

“To the southward to the southward, where a hearth gives forth its white smoke, and your mother awaits her child.”

Then, with a wild laugh, ending in sobs that wasted themselves on the silence, Lina sprang away southward, always with the storm beating in her face, and the snow weltering like a shroud around her feet.

Sometimes she would pause in a rift of the hills and look wistfully upon the bed of sere leaves and feathery snow, tempting her to sink down and die, with the grim hemlock boughs, plumed with snow wreaths drooping over her, and lulled by the gurgle of unseen waters wandering to the river, under their jewelled network of ice, but she resisted the impulse, and still bent her way to the south, while the little dog, so delicate and yet so faithful, rushed after her without a whine, as if he knew, gentle creature, that a cry of pain, added to her own sorrow, would be enough to smite away all her insane strength and leave her prostrate upon the white earth.

At last she came out of the woods upon a hill-side covered with the tangled undergrowth that follows a fire upon the hills. The trunk of an old cedar tree, blackened and charred to the roots, warned her of a close approach to the river, and in the distance she saw a wreath of dim smoke curling up through the snow. Leaving the cedar-tree on her right, Lina toiled up the hill, and crossed a ravine darkened with great white pines and spruce trees. At the bottom, a mountain stream broke through ten thousand fairy chains of ice, and melting the pearly foam of the snow as it fell, sent it leaping downward in a torrent that seemed half diamonds, half pearl drifts, under which the pure waters went singing softly on their way to the river.

Lina did not heed the gentle warning of the waters, but sprang forward in wild haste. Her step shattered the glittering ice right and left, and the cold water gushed over her feet and garments, but she moved on without pause, climbing up the banks of the stream till a smooth platform of snow, and a house whose windows were fitfully revealed by pale gleams of light, evidently from a half buried fire, stood before her.

She drew near to the house, standing there in the darkness, and began to stagger, for now the unnatural strength which had nerved her, gave way. The icy waters of the brook froze into fetters, around her ankles, and she fell, without a sigh or moan, with her face toward the earth.

The poor little hound, after pulling at her garments with piteous whines, set up a howl that rang mournfully over the snow waste around. Lina did not move. She was sensible, but utterly strengthless. All that she had suffered was lost in a single desire to be still, and sleep or die.

The howl of her poor, shivering companion, so sharp and plaintive in reality came to her ear as if from a great distance, and for once she struggled to call Fair-Star by name, and tell him where she was, but her lips gave forth no sound, and when the dog set up another cry, Lina did not hear it.