Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/123

Rh of thee has given me a respite, but it will not be a long one. I am faint from pain and hunger, and the night is growing fiercely cold. Thou wilt only have to watch with me a short time, little one. * * * * What wilt thou do without me, Marie?" he asked once more, this time his voice full of love and tenderness, all the old impatience gone from it.

"Antoine, do not ask me. Without thee I cannot live. If thou diest here I will never leave this spot. I will stay with my arms around thee, and when death comes to thee it will come to me."

"No, my sweet Marie. Thou must leave me when I am dead. Go to the camp, and when spring comes some one will take thee to thy mother, for there are kind hearts among my wild comrades, and for my sake, as well as thine, they will be good to thee."

"Oh, Antoine, life without thee will be nothing. Do not bid me seek it; let me lay it down with thine," she implored him passionately.

"I want to tell thee, Marie, all the good resolutions I was forming as I hurried toward thee, that thou mayest have none but kind remembrance of me in the years to come."

Then he told her all, and told her timidly and falteringly of the hope that had come to him when he found he must die—of the almost assured belief which her love had taught him to dare to hope for through the infinite love of God. Sobbing wildly, she listened to him and comforted him. Then at last they were silent, she chafing and caressing his cold hands with her almost equally icy ones, and he watching her with happy, patient eyes. The breathless night grew colder and colder, and the far-off stars glittered through the trees. At length Antoine's arm loosened its pressure; he leaned heavily against Marie and slept.

With a low, piercing cry which could not reach his dulled brain, the moon, stars, and trees whirled in a labyrinth around her, as she fainted from the consciousness of her woe.

The snow was melting from every sunny slope when Marie looked at the world again. The scene upon which she opened her eyes was so unfamiliar to her, that she thought it all a dream, until a face bent over her which seemed to belong to the winter day, long, long ago, when she had gone in search of Antoine. She looked into the coarse but kindly face, and the past came back to her. With a groan, she turned away.

"Do not tell me; I know it all. Antoine is dead."

The girl leaned over her and said softly:

"Joy is sometimes harder to bear than sorrow. Canst thou bear it?" Marie turned quickly back.

"Tell me! Tell me!"

"I will let another tell thee," and she hurried away.

Marie fell back in silent happiness, and a moment more Antoine clasped her in his arms. Presently he told her how death had been frightened away. After Marie had left the camp that winter day, seeing how cold the night was growing, and fearing that she could not make her way alone, two of the settlers had followed her, and soon after the dull slumber had wrapped Antoine in its fatal sweetness, and while Marie was insensible to everything, the hunters found them. It was short work for their strong arms to release the prisoner, and, before daybreak, rescued and rescuers were safe in camp. Antoine's recovery was far more speedy than Marie's, and for many weeks he feared that it was he who would have to go through the world alone. But now the two who had parted in death met in life, and life—whose other name is happiness—beamed with loving welcome for them. They watched the coming of spring, and when it burst upon them in its northern swiftness and beauty, they started out under the tender whispering leaves, and wandered toward the great river.

One evening in early midsummer, as the mother stood at the cottage door looking toward the forest, she saw two forms emerge from its shade and cross the meadow. She watched them as they came along the path toward the cottage; then she staggered down the little garden walk as one of the wanderers, seeing her, bounded to her with outstretched arms, and Marie and her mother were together once more.