“I am rested,” she had said, “and your strength is precious. Let the beast bear the burden for which he was born.”
Martin Valliant had to hide the vivid memories of yesterday, but as he stood at Mellis’s side on the edge of the beech wood and looked down upon Woodmere, he could but marvel at the strangeness of life. Here was he beside her, her comrade in arms, an outlaw, a man who had thrown the future into the melting-pot of fate. And as he watched a world of tenderness and yearning swim into her eyes, his soul stood stoutly to its outlawry. His muscles were made to serve her, and he thanked God for his strength.
“That was our home.”
She looked long at it, her lips trembling, her bosom rising and falling with emotion.
“Gilbert will never see it again. We used to draw pictures in France, and in his fancy the apple trees were always pink and white, just as they are now.”
Martin could find no words to utter. He wanted to touch her, to make her feel that he understood.
But she broke loose from these sad thoughts, rallied herself to face the fiercer issue.
“The valley looks empty.”
They scanned it keenly.
“Not a soul.”