Through the heavy hours Eric never moved; he was fighting alone a dreary battle against life and his God. Nor did he know, as his face lay hidden in his clenched hands, that the magic hilt of the sword was glowing like a shining promise far over the sleeping world. There it stood, a cross of flame, burning with sacred light, watching over this desperate mortal who longed to cast his life away. The wind howled with voices of terror and storm; the dust was whirled in clouds from the frozen waste, sweeping over the cross-shaped light and over the weeping man, trying to blot them out of sight. But deep down in eternal night, under the protecting arms of her lover, rested Stella in stony quiet, bedded in the lap of old Mother Earth. Beneath her closed lids her starry eyes were for ever guarding the last dear vision her waking brain had looked upon. XXVII And in her two white hands like swans on a frozen lake, Hath she not my heart, that I have hidden there for dear love's sake. FIONA MACLEOD. Morning dawned, and Eric rose from the ground, half-frozen from his long night's vigil, his eyes hollow, staring with a desperate look. The wan daylight was gradually spreading over the wilderness, on which he stood like a wounded soldier whom his comrades had forsaken, imagining he was dead. No, he was not dead, poor youth, he was alive, crying, with broken heart and thirsting soul, for what could be no more. He had lived his dream and shattered it all in one. Zorka had been right, some flowers must not be plucked; and now his hands were empty--empty. He himself had made the sweet petals fall, and no earthly power could give them back their bloom. Down there under the dark cold sod she lay, his dream of dreams, crushed by his passion and love. He had held his soul's desire pressed against his wildly beating heart, and she had left him in their hour of rapture; had died beneath the fire of his kiss. Once more he threw himself down upon the merciless earth that covered her sacred beauty. He pressed his mouth upon the dust of the ground, tracing the sign of the Cross with his lips, there where he guessed that her snowy brow, her silent heart, and closed eyes lay hidden for ever out of sight. Then kneeling before the cross-shaped sword, Eric prayed in words of glowing entreaty to the great Father above, that her sleep should be sweet and the earth soft to that body he loved, that the weight of the dark mould that wrapped her round should not be heavy to her delicate limbs. He cried to that silent brooding sky to be merciful towards that creature of light and soon to call her from the damp dark grave to a sunrise of glory and joy.