of triumph when you know that you have borne me safely over that
abyss at the brink of which I am hovering now, you will go off
into the forest, and--"

She approached him, and laid a hand on his arm. "You will not come
back," she finished, so gently that he scarcely heard her words.
"You will die--for me--for all who have known you."

"Good God!" he breathed, and he stared over her head to where the
red and gold billows of the forests seemed to melt away into the
skies.





CHAPTER FOUR


Thus they stood for many seconds. Never for an instant did her
eyes leave his face, and Philip looked straight over her head into
that distant radiance of the forest mountains. It was she whose
emotions revealed themselves now. The blood came and went in her
cheeks. The soft lace at her throat rose and fell swiftly. In her
eyes and face there was a thing which she had not dared to reveal
to him before--a prayerful, pleading anxiety that was almost ready
to break into tears.

At last she had come to see and believe in the strength and wonder
of this man who had come to her from out of the North, and now he