"Stop," she entreated, lifting her violet eyes. "Repeat that name a hundred times, and find for it a new attribute of love each time. But let the first be false and the second fair."
"Sweet Madeleine!"
"Call me so, Geoffrey," she murmured. "And I shall not wish to change."
There was a hill beyond, its sides covered with bleached grass, and above a few gaunt pines beating their ragged heads together and stabbing one upon the other with jagged arms where limbs had been amputated by previous storms. To this place Madeleine led her lover.
It was a strange day. Though long past sunrise there was barely light. The clouds swept low, grey or indigo masses rushing south with the speed of rapids. The dark, solid wind of the lowlands came in a furious succession of great waves. The lovers might have been upon an island with the ocean roaring round in storm. Out of the gloom the wet rocks glimmered and the trunks of long-fallen trees described weird shapes upon the plain.
"This is life!" cried Madeleine. "Glorious life!"
Geoffrey held her closely, looking down upon her wet and radiant face.
"We can fight together, you and I," she went on. "No wind shall conquer while we hold together. It may roar at us, but we are young and strong, and the wind is old and worn. Think you that you can bear with me always? I promise you I will never use deceit again. We shall be together when the winds have all passed under heaven, and the trees are gone, and the seas have dried. Our souls will live in the same life and the same love. Together while the old world crumbles, and the sun becomes cold, and the moon fades. There is no death. We shall close our eyes one day and change our home. Life will run on for us, the same magnificent life of love."
"There is no death," he repeated, as though the idea had not occurred to him before.
"How many thousand years has this wind rushed upon this hill? How many thousand shall it beat after we have changed our home? We are made to live, Geoffrey. It is not we who are sick, not we who are oppressed. We are made of stuff that does not perish, not flesh and blood which wither, but breath and love. Kiss me, Geoffrey, kiss me with your soul."