Page:Old ninety-nine's cave.djvu/243

 shadow of the mountain and from his chamber window Mr. De Vere looked out with feelings akin to awe. The world seemed dumb, frozen by the hands of grim winter; Nootwyck a city of giant snowdrifts. A few twinkling lights indicated that life was still there but the silence was of that muffled kind which makes one apprehensive.

"Oh, what untold sufferings this must have caused!" he reflected, tears starting to his eyes as he glanced in the direction where Shushan lay, and he thought of the young life among those snow-bound hills, there being devoured by a relentless foe. What a power for good he might have been! His very soul recoiled at the thought that one with Hernando's fine feelings should be a victim to the most loathsome disease known and compelled to saturate his poor, disfigured body with the nauseating fumes of "Stinking Spring." "Ah, well," he thought bitterly, "this is one of the 'mysteries.'"

Tired out, he retired early but tossed restlessly all night.