* * * * * The darkness, folding itself like a velvet mantle about the far mountains, deepened, and her voice deepened with it. "Can you even promise that we won't lose each other there?" she asked somberly. At this he suddenly took her into his arms, silently, bending his face to hers, his insistent eyes bringing hers up to meet his gaze. She could feel the strong throbbing of his heart all through her own body. She clung to him as though she were drowning. And indeed she felt that she was. Life burst over them with a roar, a superb flooding tide on whose strong swelling bosom they felt themselves rising, rising illimitably. The sun had now wholly set, leaving to darkness the old, old plain, soaked with humanity. CHAPTER II _INTERLUDE_ March 15, 1920. 8:30 A.M. Marise fitted little Mark's cap down over his ears and buttoned his blue reefer coat close to his throat. "Now you big children," she said, with an anxious accent, to Paul and Elly standing with their school-books done up in straps, "be sure to keep an eye on Mark at recess-time. Don't let him run and get all hot and then sit down in the wind without his coat. Remember, it's his first day at school, and he's only six." She kissed his round, smooth, rosy cheek once more, and let him go. Elly stooped and took her little brother's mittened hand in hers. She said nothing, but her look on the little boy's face was loving and maternal. Paul assured his mother seriously, "Oh, I'll look out for Mark, all right." Mark wriggled and said, "_I_ can looken out for myself wivout Paul!" Their mother looked for a moment deep into the eyes of her older son, so clear, so quiet, so unchanging and true. "You're a good boy, Paul, a real comfort," she told him. To herself she thought, "Yes, all his life he'll look out for people and get no thanks for it." * * * * * She followed the children to the door, wondering at her heavy heart. What could it come from? There was nothing in life for her to fear of course, except for the children, and it was absurd to fear for them. They were all safe; safe and strong and rooted deep in health, and little Mark was stepping off gallantly into his own life as the others had done. But she felt afraid. What could she be afraid of? As she opened the door, their advance was halted by the rush upon them of Paul's dog, frantic with delight to see the children ready to be off, springing up on Paul, bounding down the path, racing back to the door, all quivering eager exultation. "Ah, he's going _with_ the children!" thought Marise wistfully. She could not bear to let them leave her and stood with them in the open door-way for a moment. Elly rubbed her soft cheek against her mother's hand. Paul, seeing his mother shiver in the keen March air, said, "Mother, if Father were here he'd make you go in. That's a thin dress. And your teeth are just chattering."