But they were served a warm supper ben in the parlour and sat there thawing in front of a fire, resin-spitting, curling bright amber flames up the wide lum, it whoomed in the blasts of the storm driving night, hunted, down through Drumtochty. Sometimes the whoom in the lum would still, then roust and ring as though the storm going by beat a great bell in the low of the lift. And Ellen felt happy and content again, sleepy as a cat, a little bit like one: and something a moment touched through to Εwan, a hand from other days, other nights, queerly. He said You’re thinner, you were always slim, but plump in a way as well that time we climbed the Barmekin. She shook her head, she was just the same, only horribly sleepy, was he coming now?

He went to the window and looked out at the storm, solid in front of the inn it went by, speckled in the lights, a great ghost army hastening east, marching in endless line on line, silent and sure; and he thought a minute Our army’s like that, the great lost legion, nothing to stop it in heaven or hell; and that thought lit him up a little moment till he closed it away in impatient contempt. Bunk symbolism was a blunted tool.

So he said he’d look in at the bar a minute, and sent Ellen to bed: looked a tired kid. When he got up the stairs in a half-hour or so the house was shaking in every gust, the candle-flame leaped as he opened the door, Ellen lying in bed in silk nightie, pretty thing, drowsy, she said Hurry, it’s cold.

But soon it wasn’t, the candle out, the lights from the fire lay soft in the room, he said Warm now? and she said That was fun: remember the first time I said that? And she laid her head in the hollow of his arm sleeping the New Year in.

The storm was over when they woke next day, breakfast ready and a tramp in the snow to follow, they climbed to the top of Cairn o’ Mount, bare ragged and desolate under the snow, no exaltation of the storm left; around them, mist-draped, the jumble of hills. It seemed to Ellen the most desolate place that God ever made, and she hated it.

But Ewan said one could think up here and sat on a stone and filled his pipe, and dusted the stone clear of snow: Sit down. I’ve something to ask you.

She sat down and cuddled up close to his shoulder and said if the question was if she still loved him, the answer was in the affirmative, worse luck. And did he know he was, oh damnably thrilling?

He said Listen, Ellen. About the Party. Why haven’t you been to the meetings of late?

She watched a puff of wind come over the snow, ruffling it like an invisible snake, nearer and nearer, and caught her breath, if it didn’t reach them—for a luck, a sign…. It blew a white dust over her hands.