Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/75

Rh "I believe," he said.

"If you should live, and I should die—"

"I would throw the cross away."

"No, you would keep it; and every time it touched cold against your breast you would think of me, Pierre, would you not?"

"When you reach out to me like that, you sort of take my heart between your hands."

"And when you look at me like that I feel grownup and sad and happy both together. But, listen, Pierre, I know why I cannot die now. God means us to be so happy together, doesn't He? Because after we've been together on such a night, how can we ever be apart again?"

The mass of the landslide toppled right above them. She did not seem to see.

"Of course we never can be."

"But we'll be like a brother and sister and something more."

"And something more, Mary."

She clapped her hands and laughed. The laughter hurt him more than her sobbing, for as she lay wrapped in her thick furs, even the pale, cold light could not make her pallid.

The blowing hair was as warm as yellow sunshine to the heart of Pierre le Rouge, and the color of her cheeks was as dear to him as the early flowers of spring in the northland.

"I'm so happy, Pierre. I was never so happy."

And he said, with his eyes on the approaching ruin: