His resolution had given way at last. But in such cases, is it not always the woman that is strongest? "No," she said, "you told me that your God would forsake you if you did. It must not be." She withdrew herself from his arms and stood looking at him. He saw in the moonlight that her pale tear-stained face had upon it a sorrowful resignation, a mournful strength, born of very hopelessness. "God keep you, Wallulah!" murmured Cecil, brokenly. "If I could only feel that he would shelter and shield you!" "That may be as it will," replied the sweet, patient lips. "I do not know. I shut my eyes to the future. I only want to take myself away from you, so that your God will not be angry with you. Up there," she said, pointing, "I will meet you sometime and be with you forever. God will not be angry then. Now farewell." He advanced with outstretched arms. She motioned him back. "It will make it harder," she said. For a moment she looked into his eyes, her own dark, dilated, full of love and sadness; for a moment all that was within him thrilled to the passionate, yearning tenderness of her gaze; then she turned and went away without a word. He could not bear to see her go, and yet he knew it must end thus; he dared not follow her or call her back. But so intense was his desire for her to return, so vehemently did his life cry out after her, that for an instant it seemed to him he _had_ called out, "Come back! come back!" The cry rose to his lips; but he set his teeth and held it back. They _must_ part; was it not God's will? The old pain at his heart returned, a faintness was on him, and he reeled to the ground. Could it be that her spirit felt that unuttered cry, and that it brought her back? Be this as it may, while he was recovering from his deadly swoon he dimly felt her presence beside him, and the soft cool touch of her fingers on his brow. Then--or did he imagine it?--her lips, cold as those of the dead, touched his own. But when consciousness entirely returned, he was alone in the forest. Blind, dizzy, staggering with weakness, he found his way to the camp. Suddenly, as he drew near it he felt the earth sway and move beneath him like a living thing. He caught hold of a tree to escape being thrown to the ground. There came an awful burst of flame from Mount Hood. Burning cinders and scoria lit up the eastern horizon like a fountain of fire. Then down from the great canyon of the Columbia, from the heart of the Cascade Range, broke a mighty thundering sound, as if half a mountain had fallen. Drowning for a moment the roar of the volcano, the deep echo rolled from crag to crag, from hill to hill. A wild chorus of outcries rang from the startled camp,--the fierce, wild cry of many tribes mad with fear yet breathing forth tremulous defiance, the cry of human dread mingling with the last echoes of that mysterious crash. CHAPTER IX. QUESTIONING THE DEAD.