"Michael," he said, "I loved her on earth. Why am I unmoved to see her leave me?"
"But when their feet touched the road, they turned and looked their terror."
But Michael answered, "It is not strange in The Land of the Dead. There are stranger partings here; but all of them are like yours—tearless for those who see the Cross."
Thornton and Marion by this time had entered the valley road and were on the other side of the rock gateway. But when their feet touched the road they turned and looked their terror. Suddenly they recoiled and struck viciously at each other. Then they parted. With the wide road between them they went down into the valley and the haze together.
Orville read the words on the rock gateway, for now they stood out so that he could see plainly, and they were: "THE ROAD WITHOUT ENDING." "Michael," he said, "what does it mean?"
Michael answered, "She could not see the Cross here, who would not see it on earth. It repelled him, who so often had repelled it in life."
III.
NEITHER Orville nor Callovan was at all moved by the tragedy each had witnessed. Orville's love for Marion was as if it had never existed. The friendship of both for Thornton did not in the slightest assert itself. They felt moved to sorrow, but the overpowering sense of another feeling—a feeling of victory for some Great Friend or Cause—left the vague sorrow forgotten in an instant. Both men knew that Thornton and Marion had passed out of their ken forever, and in the future would be to them as if they had not been. All three made haste to go toward the road which led up to the Flaming Cross. Then upon Orville's shoulders he felt a heavy burden, but still heavier was one which was bending Callovan down. Michael alone stood straight, without a weight upon him.