The plumes of the pines, etched black against a flaming orange sunset, sparkled with the gems of a newly fallen snow. Luminous white made light the forest, throwing into cameo-like relief each obscure beauty and blemish of the woodland and transforming into sharply defined silhouettes the skeleton tracery of tree, branch, and every tiny growing thing. Though the tangle of stunted fir and oak a path threaded, its way, a path that rose and dipped with the sandy country until it seemed almost a part of the undulating ocean that leaped to meet it. This path linked the hamlet of Belleport with the seacoast, and moving along its sinuous windings, purpled into shadow by the waning day, came Penelope Turner, a buoyant figure stepping airily and leaving in the virgin snow small, clearcut footprints. In and out the maze of undergrowth she moved, the hush of the snow, the peace of the twilight, the music of the surf about her. And yet for all the brooding solitude of the place, Penelope was not alone. RapidIy blotting out her tracks beneath a stride, speedy and determined, a man in khaki hastened after her.....