up the clothes and kissed them as she had never kissed Adam,
as she had never kissed anything in her life. After awhile the tears
ceased to flow, and there stole over her a gracious calmness and then
the slumber of a child.

She did not hear Adam, nor see him, until he passed the window and
stood in the doorway, all the sunset glow back of him. Then she
started to her feet, her arms closing instinctively over the tiny
garments she had gathered to her breast, as she stepped back, her face
flushing and paling all in a moment.

He stood as if he dared not move lest the vision vanish, but heart and
soul looked out of his eyes.

"Eve," he said, "Eve!"

She turned, and he sprang toward her with an eager cry of joy.

"Eve," he repeated, "Eve, my love, my soul! You have decided; you are
going to be my wife. Oh, do not torture yourself or me any longer with
doubts that did not enter the mind of God Almighty when He made us
what we are. You are my world, dearer than life, more necessary than
the air we breathe. We are only one being, separated God knows how
long, but united now forever. Nothing can part us again."

He stopped and held out his arms to her. He had taken her into their
shelter very often, but now he wanted her to come to him and nestle
against his heart of her own will. She took a single step, stretching
out her arms to him with a gesture of infinite trust and abandon. The
long sheer dress fluttered down to the floor, and lay between them.

They stood as still as if frozen.

"Dare you cross it?" she said, and hid her face in her hands.

He stooped and picked it up, and looked at it as a man might look at
the soul of something of which he had never seen the body. He had a
sense of his own strength, the glory of his manhood, and a vision of
his weakness. She watched him breathlessly. He put the garment down on
the table and smoothed it out gently. There was in his face the
combined look of a man who sees the cradle and the coffin of his
firstborn.

She went and stood beside him, touching the dress timidly. He covered
her hand with his own.

"My wife," he said, "we know all there is to say, all there is to
risk. We must do what is right. I am going now to set everything at
liberty. It is nearly sundown; you will meet me at the rock in half an
hour. If we give each other our right hands, we will fear no evil, not
though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, for the love
in our hearts is deathl