"And that was the beginning of the end."
"No—the beginning of better things. We will hope the end is a long way off yet."
"I wonder ... and what it will be," said she thoughtfully.
And he wondered if in her heart there was any sweet white seed of hope akin to that which was striking its roots so deeply in his own,—and if not, if it might be possible to plant it there.
XLV
This new life, free from the shadow of perpetual menace, was full of rare and delicate charm for both of them, differing only in quality and degree according to that wherewith Nature had endowed them.
One root-thought was inevitable to both their minds—that here were they two, cut off from the rest of the world, probably for the term of their natural lives. Here, as far as they could foresee, they two must live, alone,—together; and here, in the end, they must die; their living and their dying alike unseen and unknown except by their Maker.
In his heart the white seed of the greater hope was striking deep and strong, filling his whole being with a new and exquisite delight before even it had had time to shoot and flower.
Exile for life on that barren strip of sand, which with Macro as sole fellow-sufferer would have been barely tolerable, assumed a very different aspect with Avice Drummond as his companion; and with her as sole companion, an aspect of supremest joy and expectation. It was no longer a thing to look forward to with foreboding, or at best with dull and hopeless acquiescence in the inevitable. The shadow had suddenly lifted. The desert had suddenly blossomed like the rose. The future smiled shyly as does the dawn with promise of the day.
But this new great hope, and the sense of it all in him, were of so fine and delicate a nature that he hardly dared to whisper it even in his inmost heart, lest she should see some sign of it and take fright, and all his hope vanish like smoke in a gale.