"Are you coming?"
There was silence; then he turned on his heel, and went back to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder. "Kaya," he said, whispering as if someone could hear, "Are you afraid? Why are you afraid to come with me, dear brother musician, dear comrade?" His voice broke. "I will take care of you. You said you would trust me, Kaya."
The girl clasped his arm with a cry: "I am not afraid for myself," she said, "but for you—you, Velasco. Leave me before it is too late. There is time for the train, just time. I implore you to go!"
She trembled and raised her eyes to his. "If anything should happen, and you suffered for me, I couldn't bear it. Leave me—Velasco!"
He put out his hand and took hers, crushing it in his own strength. He did not speak but he drew her forward, and she followed him dumbly, quietly, without resistance; her head drooping, the cap on the back of her yellow curls; the lashes hiding her eyes, fringing her cheek.
He took the Stradivarius under his arm. The door closed and they started out, hesitating, looking back over their shoulders; stealing down the stairs like two frightened children hand in hand.
CHAPTER X
The first pale streaks of dawn were creeping slowly up from the horizon, piercing the darkness of night with faint, far-away shafts of light, like arrows silver-tipped, shot from an unseen quiver. In the distance, the snow fields stretched limitless and vast, and between them the road wound in and out, narrow and dark, like a coiled serpent amid the whiteness.
Here and there an occasional black-roofed farm house reared its head; across the snow came the sudden gleam of an ice covered pond; while afar off, to the left, the domes of Bélaïa rose dark and mysterious in their roundness, like a patch of giant toadstools, shadowy and strange. The air was damp and a cold wind blew over the snow drifts. Along the road, in the full teeth of the blast, trudged two boys, the one a little behind the other, and the taller of the two shielding the younger with his body.