.
Someone touched him on the shoulder. He looked up and caught her last
glance. He came and stooped beside her; but she had died with that
one glance from him, bringing a faint smile to her lips. And the smile
stayed when the life of her had fled--fled through the cloud over her
eyes, from the tide-beat of her pulse. It swept out from the smoke and
reeking air into the open world, and beyond, into those untried paths
where all must walk alone, and in what bitterness, known only to the
Master of the World who sees these piteous things, and orders in what
fashion distorted lives shall be made straight and wholesome in the
Places of Readjustment.

Shon stood silent above the dead body.

One by one the miners went out quietly. Presently Pierre nodded towards
the door, and King Kinkley and another lifted him and carried him
towards it. Before they passed into the street he made them turn him so
that he could see Shon. He waved his hand towards her that had been
his wife, and said: "She should have shot but once and straight, Shon
McGann, and then!--Eh, 'bien!'"

The door closed, and Shon McGann was left alone with the dead.

ANTOINE AND ANGELIQUE

"The birds are going south, Antoine--see--and it is so early!"

"Yes, Angelique, the winter will be long."

There was a pause, and then: "Antoine, I heard a child cry in the night,
and I could not sleep."

"It was a devil-bird, my wife; it flies slowly, and the summer is dead."

"Antoine, there was a rushing of wings by my bed before the morn was
breaking."

"The wild-geese know their way in the night, Angelique; but they flew by
the house and not near thy bed."

"The two black squirrels have gone from the hickory tree."

"They have hidden away with the bears in the earth; for the frost comes,
and it is the time of sleep."

"A cold hand was knocking at my heart when I said my aves last night, my
Antoine."

"The heart of a woman feels many strange things: I cannot answer, my
wife."

"Let us go also southward, Antoine, before the great winds and the wild
frost come."

"I love thee, Angelique, but I cannot go."

"Is not love greater than all?"

"To keep a pledge is greater."

"Yet if evil come?"

"There is the mine."

"None travels hither; who should find it?"

"He said to me, my wife: 'Antoine, will you stay and watch the mine
until I come with the birds northward, again?' and I said: 'I will stay,
and Angelique will stay; I will watch the mine.'"