He was very tired, now, and very cold. He felt as if he were made of nothing but ice and cold, as if he had come out of the snow, and had certainly not come down into it. His hands and feet were numb, his lips were like ice, his body ached as if from an attack of rheumatism, his eyes were benumbed, he could not see, and yet he could not put his hands over them. It seemed to him that he would never be warm again. How long he had been in the snow! It seemed ages. He lay there, unable to move, and yet he felt he was dying. Death did not frighten him--he could not feel himself dying. Had he been dead before? Was he dead now? What was he doing? Something seemed to flutter over him. He moved his hand. It fell on soft snow, snow that yielded to his touch. The snow was warm. Something was warm--it must be the snow! What was the snow doing here--in such a place? It had never been in the road. He must be lying--he had been lying--somewhere else. Was that the snow under his head? It was--it was snow. What was it doing here? Why was it here? He knew it must be snow. It must be snow that he had been lying on, that had been cold and hard and cruel, hard and cold and cruel, hard and cold and cruel, and then had become soft and warm and nice, soft and warm and nice, soft and warm and nice--so nice that it seemed as if it had taken a share of the warmth and kindness that was in him, a share of the goodness in him, a share of the love in him. And that made him think of a thing that had happened to him when he was about eight years old. He had been put to bed--his mother was going away, and she and his father and brother were saying good-bye. He had been put to bed with his face to the wall, and had hidden his head under the pillow, because it hurt him when he had to say good-bye. There he lay, hiding his head under the pillow, when his mother came back. He heard her kiss him, and speak to him, and soothe him. And he was angry at first, until he heard her kiss his father and brother good-bye, and heard them call him. Then he felt lonesome and sorry, and began to cry. He heard her go downstairs again, and then he began to cry very hard. And he heard her come up again, and stand by his bed, and then he knew he was forgiven. He was ashamed now, after what had happened to him on the bridge. But there had been love in her voice, and there was love in the snow, soft and warm and nice. And there was love in her kiss on his forehead. He would not be ashamed again, but should always know that he was forgiven. And he was not alone. Love was everywhere, and made everything warm and kind. And then, out of the goodness and tenderness in him, came an impulse to go on with the man who had been so kind to him. He felt as if he must help and comfort him, and yet he did not know what to do. He lay there, wondering if he ought to move. It might be nice, and kind, and yet--yet it was against reason--the man might be asleep--he should not go to sleep again himself, perhaps he should keep awake, so as to help him, so as not to leave him alone--he ought to get up and put on his clothes, put on his boots and his cap and his coat, and go away. He began to struggle with his hands. The more he struggled, the harder it was. "Don't be rough with the snow," he said; "it is so soft and nice." Then he thought he could not move. He was so cold that he could not move his hands, and he did not dare to move them any more, for fear of hurting himself. But the man might be dying, and he had the sense to put his hand on his heart, and find that he was still alive. What had he done? Had the man died? No, he could not have died. The man had only slipped and hurt his leg. Had he killed him? What would the man's wife and children think of him when they saw him again, if he did not get up? For one of his feet must have touched the man's head. He was cold, so cold that he felt as if the ground he was lying on was frozen, as if the snow would never be thawed again. And then, after he had been cold for ever so long, had been cold since he had gone to sleep, after he had lain there for hours and hours, until his heart began to feel funny and strange, and he had got a pain that hurt him from head to foot--and then, all of a sudden, a thing happened. When he first went to sleep, after that horrible half-hour, he was lying in the sun, and the sun was shining in his eyes. He remembered that heavily, and for some reason he did not like it. It frightened him, and then he must have slept again. But all of a sudden there were clouds in the sky--the clouds were coming up from the south--it looked as if it must rain--it must rain--and there was rain in his eyes, so that he did not see any more. The next thing he knew, he was on the top of a bridge. The man was calling, "Come along, come along, I will not keep you a minute," and he answered "yes" and put his hand into his coat-pocket to take his purse. He could feel it when he went down the hill, and he would just give it to him, and then go. He was so cold that he could not stand up, and he thought he would sit down a minute to rest. He could hardly get up when the man pulled him up, and as he sat down, there fell on him a warm thing, so warm that he was ready to cry with pleasure. It was a soft, warm, strange thing that he could not make out at first, something that he felt a little way in, like a baby, that did not hurt, but only made him warm and happy. And then he could not sit still any more, and he was afraid to, and he thought he would walk about a little, so that the warm thing would breathe on his back. He walked round the wall for a little, he did not know what he did, he did not feel anything that he did. And then he came back to the man, and he was very tired, and he thought he would lie down for a minute. When he touched him, he was cold and hard, and when he called to him he did not answer. And then he began to feel angry with him, and he put out his hand to shake him, and when he felt him he was cold and hard, and when he called to him he felt as if his head were cut in two. And when he did not answer, he was so angry that he knew what he would do, he would shake him and shake him, until he woke up, and then he would give him a little kiss and say "Good-bye." And then he began to cry because he was so cold. Then there came a sense of relief, as if something were being lifted off, as if he were waking up. He must be awake. There was a terrible thing in his arms--a horrid cold, hard thing that hurt him. He tried to put it from him, he tried to wake, to move--he tried to get away from it. But it seemed as if he were frozen. And then it began to hurt him, and then to burn him, as if he were on fire. Something was stinging him, squeezing him, like little red hands that burned and burned and burned. And then it began to go away, to leave him, and to go far away, far away. And he seemed to sink into a great, soft mass that was so much bigger than he was. Then all was darkness and cold, and the soft, strange thing was far away, far away, far away. And then the cold went away, and he was asleep. _Chapter XVI_ When he awoke he was lying in his bed, and it was the man and his wife and his boy who had been playing on the bridge that had hurt him so much, but they were gone. There was no one there. His brother's picture was on the dressing-table, the silver handle of the key was on the mantel-shelf, but there was no one. And then it came over him, that the man must be dead. He tried to cry. He felt as if his throat were dry,