"It may be in this marvellous world, where men carry on their wars and their wooings," she went on strangely, "some pursuing their little ways of darkness, some bursting into blooms of valor and tenderness;—it may be that two of Earth's people, after a dreadful passage through agony and terror, have been restored to each other—as we are. It may be that in the roll of Earth's tableaux, another such film is curled away from another age and another cataclysm."
"Paula," he declared, after a moment, "I have found a Living Truth in this happiness—the Great Good that Drives the World! I think I shall not lose it again. Glimpses of it came to me facing the East—as I wrote and thought of you. One glimpse was so clear that I expressed it in a letter, 'I tell you there is no death, since I have heard the Skylark sing....' I lost the bright fragment, for a few days in New York—battled for the prize again both in New York and yesterday at the mountain. To-day has brought it to me—always to keep. It is this: Were you to die, I should love you and know you were near. This is love above Flesh and Death—the old mystifying Interchangeables. This happiness is the triumph over death. It is a revelation, a mighty adoring—not a mere woman in my arms, but an ineffable issue of eternity. A woman, but more—Love and Labor and Life and the Great Good that Drives the World! This is the happiness I have and hold to-day: Though you died, I should know that you lived and were mine."
"I see it—it is the triumph over death—but, Quentin Charter—I want you still!"
"Don't you see, it is the strength you give me!—that girds me to say such things?"
So they had their flights into silence, while the eternal gray lived in their round summit of sky—until the voices of the rescuers and their own grateful answers.... The sailor was sent back to the boat for rope, while Macready cheered them with a fine and soothing Gaelic oil.... They lifted Paula, who steadied and helped herself by the chain; then sent the noose down for Charter.
"Have you the strent', sir, to do the overhand up the chain?" Macready questioned, and added in a ghost's whisper, "with the fairest of tin thousand waitin' at the top?"
Charter laughed. To lift his right arm was thrashing pain, but he made it easy as he could for them; and in the gray light faced the woman.
She saw his lacerated hand, the mire, fire-blisters upon his face, the blood upon his clothing, swollen veins of throat and temples, and the glowing adoration in his eyes.... She had bound her hair, and there was much still to bind. No mortal hurt was visible. Behind her was the falling sea. On her right hand the smoking ruin of the Palms; to the left, Pelée and his tens of thousands slain; above, the hot, leaden, hurrying clouds.... Ernst, Macready and the sailor moved discreetly away. Backs turned, they watched the puffs of smoke and steam that rose like gray-white birds from the valley of the dead city.
"Ernst, lad," said Macready, "the boss and the leadin' lady are havin' an intellekchool repast in the cinter av the stage by the old well. Bear in mind you're a chorus girl and conduct yourself in accord. Have you a drop left in the heel av the flask, Adele, dear?"