I should have kept my secret, and prayed
that you might be happy. Now when, so far as worldly rank goes, we stand
as equals in the valley of death, I dare open all my heart to you; and, if
it must be, I should ask no better end than to enter eternity here holding
your hand."

She trembled a little, great tears were brimming in her eyes, but again I
read more than pity or sorrow in their liquid depths, and the next moment
I had spread my wet arms about her and her head rested on my shoulder.
There are some things that concern but two souls among all those on earth,
and the low answer that came for the first time falteringly through her
lips is to be numbered among them; but a little later, with my arm still
about her, Grace smiled up at me wistfully as the remorseless waters
lapped nearer.

"I loved you because you were steadfast and fearless," she said.
"Sweetheart, it will not be so hard to die together now. Do you know this
is all a part of the strange memories, as though I had learned somewhere
and somehow what was to be. Either in dreams or a mental phantasy I saw
you riding across the prairie through the whirling snow. When you strode
with bronzed face, and hard hand on my bridle through the forest, that was
familiar too, and--you remember the passage about Lancelot--I knew you
were my own true knight. But this is not the last of the dream forecasts
or memories, and there was something brighter beyond it I could not grasp.
Perhaps it may be the glories of the hereafter. I wonder whether the
thought was born when that sunset flamed and flashed?"

I listened, tightening my grasp about her and shivering a little. This may
have been due to physical cold, or a suggestion of the supernatural; but
Grace spoke without terror, reverently, and ended:

"Ralph, have you ever thought about that other world? Shall we be
permitted to walk hand in hand through the first thick darkness,
darling?"

"Don't!" I cried, choking. "You shall not die. Wait here while I try to
climb round those boulders; there might be a branch that would float us,
or a log of driftwood in a lower eddy," and leaving her I managed with
much difficulty to scale a few great water-worn masses that had fallen
from above and shut out the view of the lower river. Still, though I
eagerly scanned the boulders scattered here and there along the opposite
bank, there was only foam and battered stone, and at last I flung myself
down dejectedly on a ledge. I dare no