"My!" said Mab in a soft whisper. "Isn't that lovely?"
Merefleet said nothing. He was watching her beautiful face with a great hunger in his heart.
Mab was also silent for a while. Presently she turned her face up to his.
"The Gate of Heaven," she said in a whisper. "Isn't it fine?"
He did not speak.
She lifted a hand that felt like an icicle and slipped it into his.
"I guess we shall do this journey together, Big Bear," she said. "I'm real sorry I made you come if you didn't want to."
"You needn't be sorry," said Merefleet, with a huskiness he could not have accounted for.
"No?" she said, with a curious little thrill in her voice. "It's real handsome of you, Big Bear. Because—you know—I ought to have died more than a year ago. But you are different. You have your life to live."
Merefleet's hand closed tightly upon hers.