ours, yours, yours! You are
mine." She half raised herself and seized his two arms, searching his
eyes with terror, trying to reassure herself, to drive off the doubts
that suddenly had thronged upon her. "Tell me," she shook him by the
arm.

"I am yours," Dick lied, steadily; "my heart is yours, I love you."

He bent and kissed her on the lips. She quivered and closed her eyes
with a deep sigh.

Ten minutes later she died.

CHAPTER THIRTY

This was near the dawn of the fourth day. Dick remained always in the
same attitude, holding the dead girl in his arms. Mack, the hound, lay
as always, loyal, patient to the last. After the girl's departure the
wind fell and a great stillness seemed to have descended on the world.

The young man had lost the significance of his position, had forgotten
the snow and cold and lack of food, had forgotten even the fact of death
which he was hugging to his breast. His powers, burning clear in the
spirit, were concentrated on the changes taking place within himself. By
these things the world of manhood was opened to him; he was no longer a
boy. To most it comes as a slow growth. With him it was revelation. The
completeness of it shook him to the foundations of life. He took no
account of the certainty of his own destruction. It seemed to him, in
the thronging of new impressions, that he might sit there forever, a
buddha of contemplation, looking on the world as his maturity had
readjusted it.

Never now could he travel the Silent Places as he had heretofore,
stupidly, blindly, obstinately, unthinkingly, worse than an animal in
perception. The wilderness he could front intelligently, for he had seen
her face. Never now could he conduct himself so selfishly, so brutally,
so without consideration, as though he were the central point of the
system, as though there existed no other preferences, convictions,
conditions of being that might require the readjustment of his own. He
saw these others for the first time. Never now could he live with his
fellow beings in such blindness of their motives and the passions of
their hearts. His own heart, like a lute, was strung to the pitch of
humanity. Never now could he be guilty of such harm as he had
unthinkingly accomplished on the girl. His eyes were opened to human
suffering. The life of the world beat through his. The compassion of the
greater humanity came to him softly, as a gift from the portals of
death. The full savour of it he