Her eyes were shining, her lips parted, her face lit
up with a beautiful glow. She saw the overturned
table, Rossland’s hat and coat on a chair, the
evidence of what had happened and the quickness of
his flight; and then she turned her face to Alan again,
and what he saw broke down the last of that grim resolution
which he had measured for himself, so that in a moment
he was at her side, and had her in his arms. She
made no effort to free herself as she had done in
the cottonwoods, but turned her mouth up for him to
kiss, and then hid her face against his shoulder—while
he, fighting vainly to find utterance for the thousand
words in his throat, stood stroking her hair, and then
buried his face in it, crying out at last in the warm
sweetness of it that he loved her, and was going to
fight for her, and that no power on earth could take
her away from him now. And these things he repeated
until she raised her flushed face from his breast,
and let him kiss her lips once more, and then freed
herself gently from his arms.
CHAPTER XXIII
For a Space they stood apart, and in the radiant loveliness
of Mary Standish’s face and in Alan’s
quiet and unimpassioned attitude were neither shame
nor regret. In a moment they had swept aside the
barrier which convention had raised against them,
and now they felt the inevitable thrill of joy and
triumph, and not the humiliating embarrassment of
dishonor. They made no effort to draw a curtain
upon their happiness, or to hide the swift heart-beat
of it from each other. It had happened, and they
were glad. Yet they stood apart, and something
pressed upon Alan the inviolableness of the little
freedom of space between them, of its sacredness to
Mary Standish, and darker and deeper grew the glory
of pride and faith that lay with the love in her eyes
when he did not cross it. He reached out his hand,
and freely she gave him her own. Lips blushing
with his kisses trembled in a smile, and she bowed
her head a little, so that he was looking at her smooth
hair, soft and sweet where he had caressed it a few
moments before.
“I thank God!” he said.
He did not finish the surge of gratitude that was
in his heart. Speech seemed trivial, even futile.
But she understood. He was not thanking God for
that moment, but for a lifetime of something that at
last had come to him. This, it seemed to him,
was the end, the end of a world as he had known it,
the beginning of a new. He stepped back, and his
hands trembled. For something to do he set up
the overturned table, and Mary Standish watched him
with a quiet, satisfied wonder. She loved him,
and she had come into his arms. She had given
him her lips to kiss. And he laughed softly as
he came to her side again, and looked over the tundra
where Rossland had gone.
“How long before you can prepare for the journey?”
he asked.
“You mean—”
“That we must start tonight or in the morning.
I think we shall go through the cottonwoods over the
old trail to Nome. Unless Rossland lied, Graham
is somewhere out there on the Tanana trail.”
