ms the obstacle. They cannot marry, for Rezanov is a
heretic. And now the passion flames. This child woman will go with
him. Ah, but the church, the king of Spain, will they permit? And the
Czar! Rezanov will see to it that the Czar will clear the way for them
through power exercised at Rome and at Madrid. Conditioned upon this,
the girl's parents consent.

These lovers prate very little of love. Their desire runs too deep for
mere speech. It is a desire made up of as much spiritual as carnal
fire. It is fierce but steady in ecstacy and agony, indistinguishable
the one from the other. Rezanov, man of the great world, it purifies.
Concha it strengthens and makes indomitable. They will abide delay.
They will endure in faith and hope--the faith and hope both dimmed by
the vague and unshakable intuition or premonition that fate has marked
them for derision. Nevertheless, they will endure.

There is a meeting on a path that overlooks where the white seas strike
their tents. It is a meeting of little action, of few words. It is
tense with the almost inexpressible, but at its end, confronting the
doubtful future, realizing that when Rezanov goes he may not return,
this girl tells him: "I will give myself to you forever, how much or
little that may mean here on earth. Forever!" And then that scene in
the moonlight amid the scent of the Castilian roses, when Concha, as
signal of her trust in her lover, lifts the little wisps of hair that
conceal her ears and shows them to him--it throbs with passionate
purity in memory yet.

Rezanov sails away to Sitka with provisions, thence to Siberia, and
then begins the long ride over endless versts of land, across streams
in icy flood, in rain and cold and snow towards the capitol and the
Czar. Delays, disasters to vehicles and horses and the maddening
lengthening of time. From drenchings and freezing comes the fever that
calls for more speed. Krasnoiarsk is reached. The fever mounts, the
traveler must stop and rest and be cared for. His visions commingle
his objective and his memories ... CONCHA! ... The snowy steppes and
the inky rivers.... His servant enters the room in the inn ... Why
... "Where has Jon found Castilian roses in this barren land?" ... "and
his unconquerably sanguine spirit flared high before a vision of
eternal and unthinkable happiness" ... Castilian roses! Concha
Arguello waits among them, immortal, sainted in her purity and
fidelity, minist