Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/370

 them shaped itself into an advancing, a darker obscurity. It came with a sinister stillness, softly, swiftly, and spread about them. The river finding its ancient bed once more; rippling and gliding deeply to the poplar groves; to the cliff; as distant now and as inaccessible as the island. The timbers of the cabin groaned and trembled as they felt the impact. But they still held, and the river paused a foot below the cabin roof.

'Can you swim?' asked Graham, scanning the waters.

'No.'

'Nor can I. Yet'—still he looked about him—'one might keep afloat. You could put your hand on my shoulder. The current might carry us down against the cliff—'

'To dash us against it?—You with your broken foot? We could not keep afloat. Why waste our last moments in a vain struggle?' said Marthe. She spoke almost with a tender mockery.

He looked back at her. 'Then we are to die together, Marthe,' he said.

She had drawn her shawl down about her shoulders and folded the kid in it against her side. The form of her face seemed to float upon the darkness; he saw only her gaze and that a starry ecstasy breathed from her. 'Yes. Together,' she said. 'Are you not glad, too?'

He made no reply. He put his arms around her and laid his head, at last, upon her breast. So the dream came true. That had been her secret from the first. It was because she did not belong to life, and to the earth,