Danger | Page 2

was covered with
an even carpet many inches in depth.
It was past midnight. The air, which had been so still, was growing
restless and beginning to whirl the snow into eddies and drive it about
in an angry kind of way, whistling around sharp corners and rattling
every loose sign and shutter upon which it could lay its invisible hands.
In front of an elegant residence stood half a dozen carriages. The glare
of light from hall and windows and the sound of music and dancing
told of a festival within. The door opened, and a group of young girls,
wrapped in shawls and waterproofs, came out and ran, merrily laughing,
across the snow-covered pavement, and crowding into one of the
carriages, were driven off at a rapid speed. Following them came a
young man on whose lip and cheeks the downy beard had scarcely
thrown a shadow. The strong light of the vestibule lamp fell upon a
handsome face, but it wore an unnatural flush.
There was an unsteadiness about his movements as he descended the

marble steps, and he grasped the iron railing like one in danger of
falling. A waiter who had followed him to the door stood looking at
him with a half-pitying, half-amused expression on his face as he went
off, staggering through the blinding drift.
The storm was one of the fiercest of the season, and the air since
midnight had become intensely cold. The snow fell no longer in soft
and filmy flakes, but in small hard pellets that cut like sand and sifted
in through every crack and crevice against which the wild winds drove
it.
The young man--boy, we might better say, for, he was only
nineteen--moved off in the very teeth of this storm, the small granules
of ice smiting him in the face and taking his breath. The wind set itself
against him with wide obstructing arms, and he reeled, staggered and
plunged forward or from side to side, in a sort of blind desperation.
"Ugh!" he ejaculated, catching his breath and standing still as a fierce
blast struck him. Then, shaking himself like one trying to cast aside an
impediment, he moved forward with quicker steps, and kept onward,
for a distance of two or three blocks. Here, in crossing a street, his foot
struck against some obstruction which the snow had concealed, and he
fell with his face downward. It took some time for him to struggle to
his feet again, and then he seemed to be in a state of complete
bewilderment, for he started along one street, going for a short distance,
and then crossing back and going in an opposite direction. He was in no
condition to get right after once going wrong. With every few steps he
would stop and look up and down the street and at the houses on each
side vainly trying to make out his locality.
"Police!" he cried two or three times; but the faint, alarmed call reached
no ear of nightly guardian. Then, with a shiver as the storm swept down
upon him more angrily, he started forward again, going he knew not
whither.
The cold benumbed him; the snow choked and blinded him; fear and
anxiety, so far as he was capable of feeling them, bewildered and
oppressed him. A helmless ship in storm and darkness was in no more

pitiable condition than this poor lad.
On, on he went, falling sometimes, but struggling to his feet again and
blindly moving forward. All at once he came out from the narrow rows
of houses and stood on the edge of what seemed a great white field that
stretched away level as a floor. Onward a few paces, and then--Alas for
the waiting mother at home! She did not hear the cry of terror that cut
the stormy air and lost itself in the louder shriek of the tempest as her
son went over the treacherous line of snow and dropped, with a quick
plunge, into the river, sinking instantly out of sight, for the tide was up
and the ice broken and drifting close to the water's edge.
CHAPTER II.

"COME, Fanny," said Mr. Wilmer Voss, speaking to his wife, "you
must get to bed. It is past twelve o'clock, and you cannot bear this loss
of rest and sleep. It may throw you all back again."
The woman addressed was sitting in a large easychair with a shawl
drawn closely about her person. She had the pale, shrunken face and
large, bright eyes of a confirmed invalid. Once very beautiful, she yet
retained a sweetness of expression which gave a tenderness and charm
to every wasted feature. You saw at a glance the cultured woman and
the patient sufferer.
As her husband spoke a fierce