"We can fight together, you and I," she went on. "No wind shall conquer while we hold together. It may roar at us, but we are young and strong, and the wind is old and worn. Think you that you can bear with me always? I promise you I will never use deceit again. We shall be together when the winds have all passed under heaven, and the trees are gone, and the seas have dried. Our souls will live in the same life and the same love. Together while the old world crumbles, and the sun becomes cold, and the moon fades. There is no death. We shall close our eyes one day and change our home. Life will run on for us, the same magnificent life of love." "There is no death," he repeated, as though the idea had not occurred to him before. "How many thousand years has this wind rushed upon this hill? How many thousand shall it beat after we have changed our home? We are made to live, Geoffrey. It is not we who are sick, not we who are oppressed. We are made of stuff that does not perish, not flesh and blood which wither, but breath and love. Kiss me, Geoffrey, kiss me with your soul." "Sweet, you have more knowledge than I," cried Geoffrey as he kissed her eyes. "See that huge cloud! How the monster wishes to smother us! There it rushes, flinging its rain to spite us." "I shall see this wild spot for ever," he murmured. "In years to come," said Madeleine, "a city perchance may grow in this solitude, and where we now sit a palace or a cathedral may be built, a king may command, a pastor teach his people, bells may ring for Christmas, and heralds sound their trumpets. But we shall not see that city, my Geoffrey. We shall look below the brick and the stir of people, and we shall see a hill of white grass with old pines atop, and below streaming rocks and decaying trunks, with beyond a grove all covered in damp gloom and lashed by wind." "I can see the faces of my friends," he muttered. The girl turned upon his shoulder and drew his face lower with her cold hand, lifting her own until their eyes met. "Look there," she entreated. "Tell me what you see." "Heaven opening." He paused. "I see also my duty to my neighbour." Madeleine's head drooped. Presently a small voice whispered out of the wind, "I would have you obey that message, lest by offending God we wreck our happiness." "I live upon your will." "You must leave me. You shall not see me shed a tear. But I must have you for this day, and afterwards"--she caught her breath. "Had ever a young soldier so brave a love?" He kissed her hands, and her cold face, and her hair, which dripped like seaweed. "No ifs," she implored, when her ears caught his broken words. "The doubter fails. Look upon the deed as done, and God shall pardon the presumption, because He was once a young man upon earth, and He knows the longing of a brave heart. Already I think of you, not as going forth to duty, but as returning to claim me for your bride."