He held his arms to her.
"Not yet," she whispered, and sped on into the still darkness between the fir branches. He followed.
So on, on over the buried bushes, across the trickly, thawing streams, through a thick swamp, close with alder and birch, on up the slope into woods more largely spaced, where great oaks towered among the fir and the spruce, and tall white birches glimmered in the dusk—all still and as yet dead. And on far up the mountain slope until beneath the Altar they came to a little circle, hedged round with thick young firs, where the deep snow was tracked with footprints of birds and foxes. Margaret leaned against the root of a fallen birch and breathed deeply. She had come like the wind, swift and elusive, darting through the forest under the snowy branches, as if—so felt the man with his leashed desire of her—the mere physical joy of motion and air and sun and still woods were enough, and love had been lost in the glory of the day! …
"Here," she murmured with trembling lips, "at last!"
"At last!" he echoed, her eyes close to his. And as they waited a moment before their lips met, the woman's face softened and changed and pleaded with him wistfully, all the sorrow of waiting and hunger, of struggle and triumph in her eyes, and memory of joy and ecstasy that had been…. Her head fell to his shoulder, all will gone from her body, and she lay in his arms.
"Love!" she murmured; "my soul's desire, at last!" …
* * * * *
They had their luncheon there, in the sunny circle among the firs, and spoke of their two years' separation.
"And I am not going back!" Falkner cried joyously.
"You have decided already?"