“Suppose two were here, a man and a woman, and he swore before those eternal witnesses that he would not go away any time until she was dead and laid away up in the trees, to dry away and blow off into the air, and go back—­”

“Into the flowers,” I added, choking.

“Yes, into the trees and the flowers—­so that when she was dead and he was dead, and they were both gone back into the flowers, they would still know each other for ever and ever and never be ashamed—­would that be a marriage before God, John Cowles?”

What had I brought to this girl’s creed of life, heretofore always so sweet and usual?  I did not answer.  She shook at my arm.  “Tell me!” she said.  But I would not tell her.

“Suppose they did not come,” she said once more.  “It is true, they may not find us.  Suppose we two were to live here alone, all this winter—­just as we are now—­none of my people or yours near us.  Could we go on?”

“God!  Woman, have you no mercy!”

She sat and pondered for yet a time, as though seriously weighing some question in her mind.

“But you have taught me to think, John Cowles.  It is you who have begun my thinking, so now I must think.  I know we cannot tell what may happen.  I ask you, ’John Cowles, if we were brought to that state which we both know might happen—­if we were here all alone and no one came, and if you loved me—­ah, then would you promise, forever and forever, to love me till death did us part—­till I was gone back into the flowers?  I remember what they say at weddings.  They cling one to the other, forsaking all others, till death do them part.  Could you promise me—­in that way?  Could you promise me, clean and solemn?  Because, I would not promise you unless it was solemn, and clean, and unless it was forever.”

Strange, indeed, these few days in the desert, which had so drawn apart the veil of things and left us both ready to see so far.  She had not seen so far as I, but, womanlike, had reasoned more quickly.

As for me, it seemed that I saw into her heart.  I dropped my hands from my eyes and looked at her strangely, my own brain in a whirl, my logic gone.  All I knew was that then or elsewhere, whether or not rescue ever came for us, whether we died now or later, there or anywhere in all the world, I would, indeed, love her and her only, forsaking all others until, indeed, we were gone back into the sky and flowers, until we whispered again in the trees, one unto the other!  Marriage or no marriage, together or apart, in sickness or in health—­so there came to me the stern conviction—­love could knock no more at my heart, where once she had stood in her courage and her cleanness.  Reverence, I say, was now the one thing left in my heart.  Still we sat, and watched the sun shine on the distant white-topped peaks.  I turned to her slowly at length.

“Ellen,” I said, “do you indeed love me?”

“How can I help it, John Cowles,” she answered bravely.  My heart stopped short, then raced on, bursting all control.  It was long before I could be calm as she.