"It was not that," repeated the woman.
She attempted to stroke his face, but Cummins saw nothing of the effort, for the hand lay all but motionless. He saw nothing of the fading softness that glowed in the big, loving eyes, for his own eyes were blinded by a hot film. And the woman saw nothing of the hot film, so torture was saved them both. But suddenly the woman quivered, and Cummins heard a thrilling sound.
"It is the music!" she panted. "John, John, it is—the music—of—my—people!"
The man straightened himself, his face turned to the open door. He heard it now! Was it the blessed angels coming for his Mélisse? He rose, a sobbing note in his throat, and went, his arms stretched out, to meet them. He had never heard a sound like that—never in all his life in this endless wilderness.
He went from the door out into the night, and, step by step, through the snow toward the black edge of the spruce forest. The sobs fell chokingly from his lips, and his arms were still reaching out to greet this messenger of the God of his beloved; for Cummins was a man of the wild and mannerless ways of a savage world, and he knew not what to make of this sweetness that came to them from out of the depths of the black forest.
"My Mélisse! My Mélisse!" he sobbed.
A figure came from the shadows, and with the figure came the music, sweet and soft and low. John Cummins stopped and turned his face straight up to the sky. His heart died within him.
The music ceased, and when he looked again the figure was close to him, staggering as it walked, and a face white and thin and starved came with it. It was a boy's face.
"For the museek of the violon—somet'ing to eat!" he heard, and the thin figure swayed and fell almost into his arms. The voice came weak again. "Thees is Jan—Jan Thoreau—and his violon—"
The woman's bloodless face and her great staring dark eyes greeted them as they entered the cabin. As the man knelt beside her again, and lifted her head against his breast, she whispered once more: