But this thought was, in a sense, as superficial as her fears; for in her soul there lived a perfect faith. Through all her grief and jealousy and anger and despair she had never entirely lost the pure light of her star. She never doubted deeply that her love would triumph, even when reason told her that it had already failed; and the very words with which she had consented to leave the Park by the last stage were hollow, though they contained a prayer. She had prayed for a miracle; and the miracle had happened. Why should she be afraid?
So she was not surprised when the Twin Sisters welcomed her without so much as a gentle puff of wind upon her cheek; when the Devil’s Chair, though she held her breath at sight of what lay below, was scarce more difficult than the ridge in Paradise Park; and 254 when the central waste, where the storm had leaped on Haig, held no evil in store for her. The only obstacles encountered were those presented by the trail itself; and these, as Smythe had told her, though by no means trivial, were not insurmountable to one with a clear eye and steady nerves. It was never the trail itself that was deadly; it was the wind that would blow her into a chasm, the mist that would decoy her from the path, and the storm that would beat her down among the stones. But there was no wind, no mist, no storm; and if that was not a miracle––
Several times, to be sure, she missed the trail: once in the second field of loose stones, before she had become accustomed to the signs; once on a wide floor of solid rock, where Tuesday slipped and fell, and she rose a little stunned, and in a brief confusion; and once, the most alarming of all, when she was for half an hour lost in that granite wilderness that to Haig had suggested a cemetery of the gods. But faith sustained her, and her purpose stood in the stead of courage that might have faltered and even failed. The one moment when something like despair struck at her heart was that when she found the bruised and dirty saddle cast aside by the runaway, and thought at first that it was Philip’s; and the one moment of real terror was that in which, on the summit of the last ridge, she looked back and saw that dark gray vapors were surging up out of the chasm below the Devil’s Chair.
It chanced that in following the trail from the sharp turn on the last rock floor to the brink of the cliff (the last pyramid stands some fifty yards back from it), Marion arrived at about the same distance to the left 255 of the drop-off as Haig had brought up at the right of it. From this point even less of the meadow was visible than Haig had seen at the first view, and the mass of fallen and tumbled granite appeared even more formidable. Her immediate sensation was of tragic despair, as the evidence of her eyes for one instant overwhelmed her faith. But where was Philip? And Sunnysides?
Then a suspicion flashed into her mind. Perhaps she had missed the trail,––the real trail. She could not have been mistaken in the signs; there was the last pyramid in plain view still from where she stood. But it was not unlikely that there was another trail from the sharp turn where she had been confused for a moment, another exit made necessary by the disruption of the cliff. She paused uncertainly, looking now at the great heap of stone below her,––a thousand feet of jagged rock and sliding sand,––and now back at the toilsome way she had come. And then her eyes were caught by something that held her spellbound with horror. Up to the rocky skyline from beyond the barrier she had lately crossed there swept a tumbling mist, as gray-black as the rock itself; and an instant after she felt a stinging blow of wind on her cheek, and heard a low whisper in the air around her.
She was roused by a sound that brought her up rigid and alert in the saddle. What was that? A faint report, as of a gun––from somewhere. She listened, turning her head slowly and cautiously, and holding her breath. A long time, it seemed to her, she listened; and heard only that warning whisper of the wind across the flat. But there! Another! It came up faintly 256 from below, expiring at the very edge of the precipice. She peered guardedly down into the chasm, and saw nothing but the vast pile of débris, and a bit of green meadow over against the edge of the black forest. But it was a gun! She began now to examine the edge of the cliff. To her left it fell sheer away hundreds of feet to the lower masses of fallen stone; and there was no trail on that side. Dismounting, she led her horse slowly along the brink at her right; and so came at length to the spot where the trail dropped to the first incline. It seemed incredible; but then, even as the word framed itself in her mind, her heart bounded up into her throat. There––there––under her eyes were hoofprints, the print of steel shoes in the sand; and they went down, down, down. And, as if to remove the last of doubt and hesitancy, there came wavering up from below a third thin report, a little more distinct than the others, and undeniable.
She lifted her face toward the sky, and pressed her hands upon her breast.
“God help us! God help us––both!” she murmured.
Then she remounted Tuesday, and forced him over the edge of the cliff.