The rain had almost
ceased. Only the sound of the flood below and the gurgle of a
hundred rivulets around filled the night.
Sylvia's arm pressed upon Burke's neck. "Shall we go--right to the
top?" she said.
"The top of what?" He turned and looked into her eyes as she stood
above him.
She bent to him swiftly, throbbing, human, alive. She held his
face between her hands, looking straight back for a space. Then
with a little quivering laugh, she bent lower and kissed him.
"I think you're right, partner," she said. "We don't need to
go--any farther than this. We've--got there."
He caught her to him with a mastery that was dearer to her in that
moment than any tenderness, swaying her to his will. "Yes--we've
got there!" he said, and kissed her again with lips that trembled
even while they compelled. "But oh, my soul--what a journey!"
She clung to him more closely, giving of her all in full and sweet
surrender. "And oh, my soul," she laughed back softly--"what an
arrival!"
And at that they laughed together, triumphant as those who have the
world at their feet.
CHAPTER XIII
BY FAITH AND LOVE
The flood went down in the morning, and behind it there sprang into
being a new world of softest, tenderest green in place of the
brown, parched desert that had been. Mary Ann stood at the door of
her hut and looked at it with her goggle-eyes in which the fright
of the storm was still very apparent.
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