Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/187

Rh 'And I've looked for you in the face of every woman." "And I used to think that a still, small voice answered me out of the night."

"Oh, my dear, there was a voice; for I've loved you so hard that it must have been like a hand at your shoulder tapping, and asking you to remember me. Mary, you are crying."

"I'm so happy; I can't help it. It's as if—as if—Pierre"

"Dear, my dear."

"Hold me closer. I want to feel your strength around me, so that I know I can never lose you again."

"Never."

"Tell me again that you love me."

"I love you."

"I love you, Pierre."

Then the wind spoke for them, using the trees for a harp above them. She looked up to him, and saw the nodding branches above his head, and higher still, the cold and changeless radiance of the stars. He bent back her head and stared so grimly down into her eyes that her smile ceased tremulously.

"Mary, what is the perfume?"

"None, except the scent of the pines and the sweet, cold air of the night, Pierre."

"There is something more. It's as if the wind had taken all the fragrance from a thousand miles of wild flowers, and brought them blended and faint and sweeter than anything else in the world. It is