“Is that all?” she cheerily asked. “But avalanches melt away, and we have each other. And if it come to the very worst, we shall still have each other. Besides each other, we have life, and with life there is always hope, there is always the duty to hope. If we abandon hope, life itself is abandoned.”
This worked like good wine in his veins; but she knew by the way in which he still clung to her, seemingly fearful that she would leave him for a moment, that a dreadful unknown thing sat upon him. She waited patiently for him to disclose it. She knew that the shock of the catastrophe had wholly cleared his mind, and that the old terrors which he had concealed from her were working upon him with renewed activity. Still he kept silence.
“Do you know,” she presently said, “that I am glad the avalanche has come? I understand now the dread of some terrible happening that has been haunting you. Well, it has come, and we are still alive; and better than that, we have each other. Think how much more dreadful it might have been! Suppose that it had come while you were outside, and swept you away. Suppose that it had crushed us in the cabin. But here we are, safe and sound, and happy each in the presence of the other.... And I am thinking of something else. The snow stopped falling long ago. Lately we have had warm winds and some rain. This must mean, my friend, that the worst is over. And doesn’t it mean that the rain has softened the snow and loosened it to make this avalanche?”
A sudden strength, a surprised gladness, were in the pressure that he now gave her hand.
“It is true, it is true!” he softly exclaimed.
“Then,” she continued, “the winter has dealt its last blow, and our liberation is at hand; for the rains that caused the avalanche will melt the snow that it has piled upon us, and also the snow that has closed the roads. It seems to me that the best of all possible things has happened.”
“I hadn’t thought of that!” he exclaimed, with a childish eagerness that made her heart glow.
“Besides,” she continued, “how do you know that the cabin is destroyed? Let us go and see.”
Her gentle strength and courage, the seeming soundness of her reasoning, and her determination not to take a gloomy view of their state, roused him without making him aware of his weakness. Her suggestion that the cabin possibly had not been destroyed was a spur to his dulled and stunned perception.
“That is true,” he cheerfully said; “let us go and see.”