"Then don't care on mine, either." All at once her hand went up and caressed his face. "Hold me, Bill, won't you?" she asked. "Hold me in your arms."
She asked it simply, like a little child. He shifted his position, then lifted her so that her breast was against his, his arms around her, her soft hair against his shoulder. The candle, dropped from his hand, was extinguished. The cold deepened outside the cabin. The white, icy moon rode in the sky.
The man's arms tightened around her. He lowered his lips close to hers. There in the shadow of death her breast pressed to his, the locks of iron that held his heart's secret were shattered, the veil of his temple was rent. "Virginia," he asked his voice throbbing, "do you want me to tell you something—the truest thing in all my life? I thought I could keep it from you, but I can't. I can't keep it any more——"
Her arm went up and encircled his neck, and she drew his head down to hers. "Yes, Bill," she told him, "I want you to tell me. I think I know what it is."
"I love you. That's it; it never was and it never can be anything else." The words, long pent-up, poured from his lips in a flood. "Virginia, I love you, love you, love you—my little girl, my little, little girl——"
She drew his head down and down until her own lips halted the flow of his words. "And I love you, Bill," she told him. "No one but you."
All the sweetness and tenderness of her glorious and newly wakened love was in the kiss that she gave him. Yet the man could not believe. The human soul, condemned to darkness, can never believe at first when the light breaks through. His heart seemed to halt in his breast in this instant of infinite suspense.
"You do?" he whispered at last, in inexpressible wonder. "Did you say that you loved me—you so beautiful, so glorious—Don't tell me that in pity——"
"I love you, Bill," she told him earnestly, then laughed softly at his disbelief. She kissed him again and again, softly as moonlight falls upon meadows. The man's heart leaped and flooded, but no more words would come to his lips. He could only sit with his strong arms ever holding her closer to his breast, kissing the lips that responded so tenderly and lingeringly, swept with a rapture undreamed of before. Ever her soft, warm arm held his lips to hers, as if she could not let him go.
The seconds, thrilled with a wonder ineffable, passed into minutes. Virginia had no sensation of pain from her wound. The fear of death oppressed her no more. She knew that she had come to her appointed place at last, a haven and shelter no less than that to which the white ship comes in from the tempestuous sea. This was her fate,—happiness and peace at last in her woodsman's arms.