"You won't answer? Jim, it isn't true?"
Then fell upon those two riding side by side in the radiant afternoon the majesty and the melancholy of that wide red land. The little sounds of passage were born and died and put away forgotten. There lived upon the breast of Time the sharp steps of two horses crossing the rubble on the ground. There lived the clink of bits when heads were tossed. There lived the tiny groans of leather. And in the bunches of spinifex punctual insects tuned their throats against the evening. But he and she passed away from all these things, and after much journeying came hand in hand into some rare atmosphere where they kneeled together, two mourners at the bier of dead love. He who was so quickly moved to anger, she who but a space ago had been cold in rage, felt now only a great purifying pity move through them that such a fair comrade had been laid in a narrow bed. Desires, remorses, rages, strifes—those ragged clothes his spirit must often wear—were laid aside on the threshold of this high wide chamber, and he was re-robed in cool garments for the hour of vigil. As their spirits waited there, on either side of the bier where Love was laid out among her fading blossoms, their bodies rode across the plain, and presently the long road lay before them, where she must turn right-handed to Surprise and he ride left for Kaloona. There they stayed a little while and spoke together.
CHAPTER XIV The Halt by the Road
She was the first to speak.
"Jim, we can't ride like this for ever. A good thing if we could! I am over the first sharpness. Don't choose your words. We can't ride on like this."
"No, Maud, we can't."
"Do you love her?"
"Yes."