“Then made they for him one––cavern. And Cain said, ‘This is well,’ and he descended alone under this somber vault and sat upon a seat in the shadows, and when they had shut down the door of the cave, the Eye was there in the tombs regarding him.”
Thus, seated at her mother’s feet, Amalia rendered the poem as her mother recited, while the firelight played over her face and flashed in the silken folds of her dress. When she had finished, the fire was low and the cabin almost in darkness. No one spoke. Larry still gazed in the dying embers, and Harry still sat with his eyes fixed on Amalia’s face.
“Victor Hugo, he is a very great man, as my ’usband have say,” said the mother at last.
“Ah, mamma. For Cain,––maybe,––yes, the Eye never closed, but now have man hope or why was the Christ and the Holy Virgin? It is the forgiving of God they bring––for––for love of the poor human,––and who is sorrowful for his wrong––he is forgive with peace in his heart, is not?”
CHAPTER XXV
HARRY KING LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN
When the two men bade Amalia and her mother good night and took their way to the fodder shed, the snow was whirling and drifting around the cabin, and the pathway was obliterated.
“This’ll be the last storm of the year, I’m thinking,” said Larry. But the younger man strode on without making a reply. He bent forward, leaning against the wind, and in silence trod a path for his friend through the drifted heaps. At the door of the shed he stood back to let Larry pass.