ill I was gone back into the flowers? I
remember what they say at weddings. They cling one to the other,
forsaking all others, till death do them part. Could you promise me--in
that way? Could you promise me, clean and solemn? Because, I would not
promise you unless it was solemn, and clean, and unless it was forever."

Strange, indeed, these few days in the desert, which had so drawn apart
the veil of things and left us both ready to see so far. She had not
seen so far as I, but, womanlike, had reasoned more quickly.

As for me, it seemed that I saw into her heart. I dropped my hands from
my eyes and looked at her strangely, my own brain in a whirl, my logic
gone. All I knew was that then or elsewhere, whether or not rescue ever
came for us, whether we died now or later, there or anywhere in all the
world, I would, indeed, love her and her only, forsaking all others
until, indeed, we were gone back into the sky and flowers, until we
whispered again in the trees, one unto the other! Marriage or no
marriage, together or apart, in sickness or in health--so there came to
me the stern conviction--love could knock no more at my heart, where
once she had stood in her courage and her cleanness. Reverence, I say,
was now the one thing left in my heart. Still we sat, and watched the
sun shine on the distant white-topped peaks. I turned to her slowly at
length.

"Ellen," I said, "do you indeed love me?"

"How can I help it, John Cowles," she answered bravely. My heart stopped
short, then raced on, bursting all control. It was long before I could
be calm as she.

"You have helped it very long," I said at last, quietly. "But now I must
know--would you love me anywhere, in any circumstances, in spite of all?
I love you because you are You, not because you are here. I must be
loved in the same way, always."

She looked at me now silently, and I leaned and kissed her full on the
mouth.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE COVENANT

She did not rebel or draw away, but there was that on her face, I say,
which left me only reverent. Her hand fell into mine. We sat there,
plighted, plighted in our rags and misery and want and solitude. Though
I should live twice the allotted span of man, never should I forget what
came into my soul that hour.

After a time I turned from her, and from the hills, and from the sky,
and looked about us at the poor belongings with which we were to begin
our world. All at once my eye fell upon one of our li