He needed a few moments to get the feel of the long runners upon the snow.
"Not too fast, am I?" he asked.
"Oh, no!" She caught pace with him, breathing deeply and evenly. It was near noon and, though still cold, much warmer than in the early morning; the air was clear, and the wind, which had blown a gale during the night, had quieted almost to a calm.
"We go due south, they told me on the train," he said, glancing ahead.
"Yes; to St. Florentin; and to the Rock too, until a fork about a mile this side of grandfather's, where you take a road more to the east."
She remembered that he had not definitely said that he was bound for the island; but the visible impulse which unconsciously quickened his stride when she again mentioned the Rock revealed the fact to her.
"The farmer who keeps the key to the house on Resurrection Rock lives at the end of that road, I understand," he said.
"The road goes to his house; his name's Wheedon; he lives on the shore."
"Of course the lake is frozen over clear out to the Rock."
"Surely," Ethel said. She had been aware that he had been asking questions about the locality—and particularly about the Rock—from the people on the train. She had told him that she knew no more about the house on the Rock; nevertheless she had expected that now he would ask her more about it. Indeed, she was certain that he wanted to; but the constraint which had held him away on the train still influenced him; and it was her question which first forced itself out.
