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me--this story of your friendship. As strange and pleasant as this cool,
quiet night here, a long way from the hotels and the noise, on the edge
of the snow. For I have heard little of such friendships and I have seen
still less."

Chayne's thoughts were suddenly turned from his dead friend to this, the
living companion at his side. There was something rather sad and pitiful
in the tone of her voice, no less than in the words she used. She spoke
with so much humility. He was aware with a kind of shock, that here was a
woman, not a child. He turned his eyes to her, as he had turned his
thoughts. He could see dimly the profile of her face. It was still as the
night itself. She was looking straight in front of her into the darkness.
He pondered upon her life and how she bore with it, and how she had kept
herself unspoiled by its associations. Of the saving grace of her dreams
he knew nothing. But the picture of her mother was vivid to his eyes, the
outlawed mother, shunned instinctively by the women, noisy and shrill,
and making her companions of the would-be fashionable loiterers and the
half-pay officers run to seed.

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