dream,
or heaven or hell, or the work of some black magic; I only know that
if it is a punishment it has been commuted, in that you share it. And
yet how selfish that sounds, as selfish as love itself. I ought to
wish you were in a better, happier place, where you could carry out
your ambitions--" She stopped, and her eyes filled.

"Don't mind," he said grimly. "If that is selfishness, I am selfish to
the core. I have gone over the whole list, and I don't know any one I
would rather sacrifice to companionship with me in this exile than
you. My parents were old; they could never have borne the shock. My
sisters would be unhappy without their families; my women friends
could none of them have met the exigencies of such an existence as you
have; and as for men, by this we would all have been barbarians
together. You have kept me sane and alive, for that matter."

"But are we sane?" she said slowly, "I think I could stand it if I
only knew we were sane and alive. It is the feeling that I don't know
anything, that this valley, these mountains, may fade like the
baseless fabric of a dream. And sometimes I think that it may be real,
all real but you, and that I shall find myself here all alone, dead or
alive, sane or mad. God! how horrible it is!"

"That thought has never troubled me," he said. "Whatever has put us in
this dream together will keep us together to the end. You have not
wanted me to go far away from you, so we have worked together; I have
even let you do work that was unfit for you because I knew you would
prefer it. You were more frank about it, but you didn't feel any more
strongly than I did. I couldn't, I can't bear to have you out of my
sight."

"Have you ever thought that it may be so?" she asked hesitatingly.

"What? That it isn't a dream, and that we are sane and alive? Yes, I
have thought of that too. If it be true, how universal is the
destruction? We know now, pretty well, from the time that has
passed,--by the way, how long is it?" He stopped with a sudden dazed
look, and turned to her.

"It was the first of May," she said softly. "Now it is nearly the last
of August."

"Four months!" he said in a shocked tone. "I did not realize it; I
must have been worse stunned than I thought. In that case it seems as
if there can't be anything left of this continent, unless it be
detached peaks here and there, where other mountain ranges have been.
There may be other men and women waiting as we wait for