“Heaven is so far off. The present is all that I can see, and it is as black as death. Death! it would be sweet to die now with your arms around me; but to live year after year with him! How can I go to him, now that I have known you? How can I bear his presence, his touch?”
She shuddered there in Cecil’s arms. All her being shrunk in repugnance at the thought of Snoqualmie.
“Thank God for death!” said Cecil, brokenly.
“It is so long to wait,” she murmured, “and I am so young and strong.”
His kisses fell on cheek and brow. She drew down his head and put her cheek against his and clung to him as if she would never let him go.
It was a strange scene, the mournful parting of the lovers in the gloom of the forest and the night. To 214 the east, through the black net-work of leaves and branches, a dull red glow marked the crater of Mount Hood, and its intermittent roar came to them through the silence. It was a night of mystery and horror,—a fitting night for their tragedy of love and woe. The gloom and terror of their surroundings seemed to throw a supernatural shadow over their farewell.
“The burning mountain is angry to-night,” said Wallulah, at last. “Would that it might cover us up with its ashes and stones, as the Indians say it once did two lovers back in the old time.”
“Alas, death never comes to those who wish for it. When the grace and sweetness are all fled from our lives, and we would be glad to lie down in the grave and be at rest, then it is that we must go on living. Now I must go. The longer we delay our parting the harder it will be.”
“Not yet, not yet!” cried Wallulah. “Think how long I must be alone,—always alone until I die.”
“God help us!” said Cecil, setting his teeth. “I will dash my mission to the winds and fly with you. What if God does forsake us, and our souls are lost! I would rather be in the outer darkness with you than in heaven without you.”