Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/118

Rh forehead with a touch so soft that it was a caress. "Hush!—for what is worth life in us there will be no death!"

And the boat swept, slowly and noiselessly, through the crystal clearness of the waters, through the cold and solemn loveliness, through the twilight of the blue sea-mists, down into the narrow darkened archway of the farther distance, and out once more into the golden splendour of the living day—even as a human life, if men's dreams be true, may pass through the twilight shadows of earth down into the darkness of the valley of death, thence only to soar onward into the glory of other worlds, the radiance of other days.

She stooped to him slightly as the vessel swept away into the breadth and brightness of the bay. "Is not my temple nobler than those that are built by men?" He looked upward at her with a look in his eyes that had never been there before.

"You have taught me to-day what I never learned in all the years of my life!" And the boat passed softly, silently, out of the sea-built temples that the waves had worn, out of the