"Sweet, you have more knowledge than I," cried Geoffrey as he kissed her eyes.
"See that huge cloud! How the monster wishes to smother us! There it rushes, flinging its rain to spite us."
"I shall see this wild spot for ever," he murmured.
"In years to come," said Madeleine, "a city perchance may grow in this solitude, and where we now sit a palace or a cathedral may be built, a king may command, a pastor teach his people, bells may ring for Christmas, and heralds sound their trumpets. But we shall not see that city, my Geoffrey. We shall look below the brick and the stir of people, and we shall see a hill of white grass with old pines atop, and below streaming rocks and decaying trunks, with beyond a grove all covered in damp gloom and lashed by wind."
"I can see the faces of my friends," he muttered.
The girl turned upon his shoulder and drew his face lower with her cold hand, lifting her own until their eyes met.
"Look there," she entreated. "Tell me what you see."
"Heaven opening." He paused. "I see also my duty to my neighbour."
Madeleine's head drooped. Presently a small voice whispered out of the wind, "I would have you obey that message, lest by offending God we wreck our happiness."
"I live upon your will."