Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/143

Rh ing of the monsters coming round the tree from both sides at once. This I thought was the end of all."

"Ah!" gasped Gell, "how I know every inch of the spot. It was there I traced the great wheel-tracks and your little footprints; there I saw you had made your last stand; and there that I picked up scraps which I knew to be portions of your hat and dress, which I brought home as the last relics of you. By what miracle can you have escaped after all? Go on and tell us. It passes my comprehension."

Aurelia looked much surprised. "So you did come and look for me after all? I always wondered you had gone off without any sign, but supposed the children must have told you I was killed, and you had thought it useless to waste time looking for my remains. But I am glad you did come to look for me—very, very glad."

It was Gell's turn to look surprised and pained as well. "What! have you really thought all this time that I would leave the place without doing all I could to find what had become of you, even had I been sure that I should only find my darling's bones? And thinking this you have yet been willing to love me still? Oh, my love, my love, how could you think this of me?"