"In that case," said Darrell, "I shall be only too glad to take him, and you can rest assured I will never part with him."
The sinking sun warned them that it was time to return, and, after one farewell look about them, they prepared to descend. As they picked their way back to the trail they came upon two tiny streams flowing from some secret spring above them. Side by side, separated by only a few inches, they rippled over their rocky bed, murmuring to each other in tones so low that only an attentive ear could catch them, sparkling in the sunlight as though for very joy. Suddenly, near the edge of the narrow plateau over which they ran, they turned, and, with a tinkling plash of farewell, plunged in opposite directions,—the one eastward, hastening on its way to the Great Father of Waters, the other westward bound, towards the land of the setting sun.
Silently Kate and Darrell watched them; as their eyes met, his face had grown white, but Kate smiled, though the tears trembled on the golden lashes.
"A fit emblem of our loves, Kathie!" Darrell said, sadly.
"Yes," she replied, but her clear voice had a ring of triumph; "a fit emblem, dear, for though parted now, they will meet in the commingling of the oceans, just as by and by our loves will mingle in the great ocean of love. I can imagine how those two little streams will go on their way, as we must go, each
joining in the labor and song of the rivers as they meet them, but each preserving its own individuality until they find one another in the ocean currents, as we shall find one another some day!"
"Kathie," said Darrell, earnestly, drawing nearer to her, "have you such a hope as that?"
"It is more than hope," she answered, "it is assurance; an assurance that came to me, I know not whence or how, out of the darkness of despair."
They had reached the trail, and here Kate paused for a moment. It was a picture for an artist, the pair standing on that solitary height! The young girl, fair and slender as the wild flowers clinging to the rocks at their feet, yet with a poise of conscious strength; the man at her side, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, strong-limbed; his face dark with despair, hers lighted with hope.
Suddenly a small white hand swept the horizon with a swift, undulatory motion that reminded Darrell of the flight of some white-winged bird, and Kate cried,—