Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/186

180 the snow? Well, when the landslide moved, it carried the tree before it; the weight of the trunk was lifted from me. Perhaps it was a rock that struck me over the head then, for I lost consciousness. The slide didn't bury me, but the rush carried me before it like a stick before a wave, you see.

"When I woke I was almost completely covered with a blanket of debris, but I could move my arms, and managed to prop myself up in a sitting posture. It was there that my father and his searching party found me; he had been combing that district all night. They carried me back, terribly bruised, but without even a bone broken. It was a miracle that I escaped, and the miracle must have been worked by your cross; do you remember?"

He shuddered and threw a hand up before his eyes.

"Dearest"

"It's nothing—but the cross—for every good fortune it has brought me, it has brought bad luck to others."

"Hush, Pierre. Put your arms around me. I am all yours—all. You must not think of the trouble or the cross."

He obeyed and drew her close to him, and the warm slender body gave to him and lay close against his; and her head went back, and the curve of her soft lips was close to his. He kissed her, reverently, and then, with passion, the lips, the eyes, the throat, that quivered as if she were singing.

"Pierre, I have said good night to you every time before I went to sleep all these years."