Among the crags, high above the twinkling watch-fires and the wash of the dark river, there was the stillness of the stars, of the white frost and the bare cliffs. In the northern heavens played a soft light, and now and then a star shot. The man who marked its trail across the studded skies thought of himself as of one as far withdrawn as it from the world of lower lights in the forest at his feet. Already he felt a prescience of the loneliness of the morrow, and the morrow, and the morrow, of the slow drift of the days in the waning forest, the hopeless nights, the terror of that great solitude—and felt, too, a feverish desire to hasten that approach, to embrace that which was to be henceforth bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He wished for the clash of oars in the dark stream below and for the rise of the moon which was to shine coldly down upon him, companionless, immerged in that vast fortress from which he might never hope to emerge. The sound of cautious footsteps among the rocks brought his sick and wandering fancy back to the present. Raising himself upon his elbow and peering intently into the darkness, he made out two figures, one tall and large, the other much slighter, advancing towards him. Presently the larger figure stopped short, and, seating itself upon a flat rock at the brink of the hill, turned its face towards the fires in the woods below. The other came on lightly and hurriedly—another moment, and rising to his knees, he clasped her in his arms and laid his head upon her bosom. "I never thought to see you again," he said at last. "I made Regulus bring me," she answered. "The others do not know—they think me asleep." She spoke in a low, even, monotonous voice, and the hand which she laid upon his forehead was like marble. "My heart is dead, I think," she said. "I wish my body were so too." He drew her closer to him and covered her face and hands with kisses. "My love, my lady," he said. "My white rose, my woodland dove!" She clung to him, trembling. "Down there I was going mad," she whispered. "But now—now—I feel as though I could weep." He felt her tears upon his face, but in a moment she was calm again. "Do you remember the bird we found the other day, all numbed with cold?" she said. "It had been gay and free and light of heart, but it had not strength to flutter when I took it in my hands and tried to warm it—and could not. I am like that bird. The world is very gray and cold, and my heart—it will never be warm again." "God comfort you," he said brokenly. "They have told me that at moonrise we leave this place—and you. They say that it is all they can do for you—to leave you here. All!—Oh, my God!" "They have done what they could," he said gravely. "I recognize that. And I wish you to do so too, sweetheart."