He drew her closer to him and covered her face and hands with kisses. "My love, my lady," he said. "My white rose, my woodland dove!"
She clung to him, trembling. "Down there I was going mad," she whispered. "But now—now—I feel as though I could weep." He felt her tears upon his face, but in a moment she was calm again. "Do you remember the bird we found the other day, all numbed with cold?" she said. "It had been gay and free and light of heart, but it had not strength to flutter when I took it in my hands and tried to warm it—and could not. I am like that bird. The world is very gray and cold, and my heart—it will never be warm again."
"God comfort you," he said brokenly.
"They have told me that at moonrise we leave this place—and you. They say that it is all they can do for you—to leave you here. All!—Oh, my God!"
"They have done what they could," he said gravely. "I recognize that. And I wish you to do so too, sweetheart."
She looked at him wildly. "I have been silent," she said, pressing her clasped hands against her bosom. "I have not told them. I have obeyed what I read in your eyes. But was it well? Oh, my dear, let me speak!"
He took her hands from her breast and laid them against his own. "No," he said with a smile, "I love you too well for that."
From the woods across the river came the crying of wolves, then a silence as of the grave; then a whisper arose in the long dry grass and the leafless vines, and a cold breeze lifted the hair from their foreheads. The whisper grew into a murmur, prolonged and deep, a sound as of a distant cataract, or of the dash of surf upon a far away shore—the voice of the wind in the world of trees. A star shot, leaving a stream of white fire to fade out of the dark blue sky. From the forest came again the cry of the wolves. In the camp below there seemed some stir, and the figure seated on the rock turned its head towards them and lifted a warning hand.
"You must go," said Landless. "It was madness for you to venture here. See, the light is growing in the east."
With a low, desolate moaning sound she wrung the hands he released and raised her face to his. He kissed her upon the brow, the eyes and the mouth. "Good-by, my life, my love, my heart," he said. "We were happy for an hour. Good-by!"