t for all the people who love you and wait for you now by some warm
fire--some cozy fire, all yellow and bright?"

He took her hands and with them covered his eyes.

"Listen: I have no father; I have no mother."

"Pierre! Oh, Pierre, I'm sorry!"

"And for the rest of 'em, I've killed a man. The whole world hates me;
the whole world's hunting me."

The small hands tugged away. He dared not raise his bowed and
miserable head for fear of her eyes. And then the hands came back to
him and touched his face.

She was saying tremulously: "Then he deserved to be killed. There must
be men like that--almost. And I--like you still, Pierre."

"Really?"

"I almost think I like you more--because you could kill a man--and then
stay here for me."

"If you were a grown-up girl, do you know what I'd say?"

"Please tell me."

"That I could love you."

"Pierre--"

"Yes."

"My name is Mary Brown."

He repeated several times: "Mary."

"And if I were a grown-up girl, do you know what I would answer?"

"I don't dare guess it."

"That I could love you, Pierre, if you were a grown-up man."

"But I am."

"Not a really one."

And they both broke into laughter--happy laughter that died out before
a sound of rushing and of thunder, as a mass slid swiftly past them,
snow and mud and sand and rubble. The wind fell away from them, and
when Pierre looked up he saw that a great mass of tumbled rock and soil
loomed above them.

The landslide had not touched them, by some miracle, but in a moment
more it might shake loose again, and all that mass of ton upon ton of
stone and loam would overwhelm them. The whole mass quaked and
trembled and trembled, and the very hillside shuddered beneath them.

She looked up and saw the coming ruin; but her cry was for him, not
herself.

"Run, Pierre--you can save yourself."

With that terror threatening him from above, he rose and started to run
down the hill. A moan of woe followed him, and he stopped and turned
back, and fought his way through the wind until he was beside her once
more.

She was wringing the white, cold hands and weeping:

"Pierre--I couldn't help it--but when you left me the whole world went
out, and my heart broke. I couldn't help calling out for you; but now
I'm strong again, and I won't have you stay. The whole mountain is
shaking and falling toward us. Go now, Pierre, and I'll never make a
sound to bring you back."

He said: "Hush! I've something