St. Pierre would soon be in the full blaze of sunset, there were miles still to be travelled, she gently released her hand, turned, and they passed on. They did not say a word but in that moment of sadness, hand in hand, the future of the one had become a part of the future of the other. He was hers and she was his.
Never had love come to mortals in a more idyllic fashion, speechless, through the fading light, there on the white road with the straight palms for only witness.
CHAPTER XXIV
FLOWER OF LIGHT
When they passed through Morne Rouge the last rays of sunset were flaming up the streets of St. Pierre and the light of the moon in her first quarter was beginning to flood the world. They had still some miles to go and now their shadow lay before them, dimly sketched on the road by the strengthening moonlight. At the approach of night the air had become filled with sound. The woods were beginning to awake. The cabritt bois, the great beetles that boom amidst the tamarinds, the thousand insects of the night were tuning up, the fireflies were drifting in clouds above the grenadilla blossoms and, now, as though a door had been suddenly shut, night filled the world and the stars the sky. When they reached the turn of the road leading down to St. Pierre Gaspard paused.
Beneath them lay the city sprayed with lights, the bay touched with starlight, and beyond the shadow of the mountains the sea in the light of the moon.
“Tell me,” said he, “I must meet you again to-morrow—where shall I meet you, and when?”
She stood for a moment without answering. To-morrow she would have to go to Calabasse far away towards Pelée and beyond Morne Rouge. The eternal labour to which Fate had condemned her gave little time for lovers’ meetings. Not for a moment did she think of breaking with her work and taking a holiday; it had become a part of her life; to cease working, to give up a day just for her own pleasure never occurred to her.
“Here,” said she, at last, “an hour before sunset. I will then have returned from Calabasse.”