The Duchess, without knowing exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon Piney's shoulder, spoke no more.

And so reclining, the younger and purer pillowing the head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they fell asleep.
The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them.

Feathery drifts of snow, shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white-winged birds, and settled about them as they slept.

The moon through the rifted clouds looked down upon what had been the camp.

But all human stain, all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle mercifully flung from above.
They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp.