So it was arranged that they should winter far away, returning only to the valley for a few short days in the spring, and then leave it for ever. They had no heart now for more than just to fly from that haunted place, and before night fell in the valley they were already far away.
In vain Silencieux listened for the sound of her lover's step in the wood, for he had vowed that he would never look upon her face again.
CHAPTER XVI
THE FIRST TALK ON THE HILLS
Antony took Beatrice to the high hills where all the year long the sun and the snow shine together. He was afraid of the sea, for the sea was Silencieux's for ever. In its depths lay a magic harp which filled all its waves with music—music lovely and accursed, the voice of Silencieux. That he must never hear again. He would pile the hills against his ears. Inland and upland, he and Beatrice should go, ever closer to the kind heart of the land, ever nearer to the forgetful silences of the sky, till huge walls of space were between them and that harp of the sea. Nor in the whisper of leaves nor in the gloom of forests should the thought of Silencieux beset them. The earth that held least of her—to that earth they would go; the earth that rose nearest to heaven.
Beauty indeed should be theirs—the Beauty of Nature and Love; no more the vampire's beauty of Art.
It was strange to each how their souls lightened as the valleys of the world folded away behind them, and the simple slopes mounted in their path. In that pure unladen air which so exhilarated their very bodies, there seemed some mysterious property of exhilaration for the soul also. One might have dreamed that just to breathe on those heights all one's days would be to grow holy by the more cleansing power of the air. With such bright currents ever running through the brain, surely one's thoughts would circle there white as stones at the bottom of a spring.
"O Antony," said Beatrice, "why were we so long in finding the hills?"
"We found them once before, Beatrice—do you remember?"