He was a prisoner, and at
a time when imprisonment was hard to bear.
If only there were some way of getting quick news of Hugh! Why had
Bella and he let this thing happen? Why had they stood helplessly
by and allowed the rash fool to go singing to his own destruction?
They might have held him by force, if not by argument, long enough
to bring him to his senses. They had been weak; they were always weak
before Hugh's magnetic strength--always the audience, the following;
Bella, for all her devastating tongue, no less than himself. And
Hugh's liberty, perhaps his life, might be the price of their
acquiescence.
Straining forward in his chair, listening, there came to Pete, across
the silence, the sound of skis.
He rose and hopped to the door, flinging it wide. He could not see
above the top of the drift which rose just beyond the roof to a height
of nine or ten feet, but listening intently, he thought he recognized
a familiar slight unevenness in the sliding of the skis.
"Bella!" he shouted, his boy-voice ringing with relief. "Bella! Here's
Hugh. He's come back."
Bella was instantly at his side. They stood waiting in the doorway.
Against the violet sky darkening above the blue wall of snow, a bulky
figure rose, blotting out the light.
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