“Mary!” he called. “Mary Standish!”
She turned. And in that moment Alan Holt’s face was the color of gray rock. It was the dead he had been thinking of, and it was the dead that had risen before him now. For it was Mary Standish who stood there on the old cottonwood log, shooting firecrackers in this evening of his home-coming.
CHAPTER XIII
After that one calling of her name Alan’s voice was dead, and he made no movement. He could not disbelieve. It was not a mental illusion or a temporary upsetting of his sanity. It was truth. The shock of it was rending every nerve in his body, even as he stood as if carved out of wood. And then a strange relaxation swept over him. Some force seemed to pass out of his flesh, and his arms hung limp. She was there, alive! He could see the whiteness leave her face and a flush of color come into it, and he heard a little cry as she jumped down from the log and came toward him. It had all happened in a few seconds, but it seemed a long time to Alan.
He saw nothing about her or beyond her. It was as if she were floating up to him out of the cold mists of the sea. And she stopped only a step away from him, when she saw more clearly what was in his face. It must have been something that startled her. Vaguely he realized this and made an effort to recover himself.
“You almost frightened me,” she said. “We have been expecting you and watching for you, and I was out there a few minutes ago looking back over the tundra. The sun was in my eyes, and I didn’t see you.”
It seemed incredible that he should be hearing her voice, the same voice, unexcited, sweet, and thrilling, speaking as if she had seen him yesterday and with a certain reserved gladness was welcoming him again today. It was impossible for him to realize in these moments the immeasurable distance that lay between their viewpoints. He was simply Alan Holt—she was the dead risen to life. Many times in his grief he had visualized what he would do if some miracle could bring her back to him like this; he had thought of taking her in his arms and never letting her go. But now that the miracle had come to pass, and she was within his reach, he stood without moving, trying only to speak.
“You—Mary Standish!” he said at last. “I thought—”
He did not finish. It was not himself speaking. It was another individual within him, a detached individual trying to explain his lack of physical expression. He wanted to cry out his gladness, to shout with joy, yet the directing soul of action in him was stricken. She touched his arm hesitatingly.
“I didn’t think you would care,” she said. “I thought you wouldn’t mind—if I came up here.”