mountaineer, face upward and
unmoving, as he had lain since a rock loosened beneath him, and the
depths swallowed him. If he had had ears to hear, he would have answered
the soft, bitter cries which rose from a but on the Voshti Hills above
him:

"Michel, Michel, art thou gone?"

"Come back, oh, my father, come back!"

But perhaps it did avail that there were lighted candles before a little
shrine, and that a mother, in her darkness, kissed the feet of One on a
Calvary.

THE WHITE OMEN

"Ah, Monsieur, Monsieur, come quick!"

"My son, wilt thou not be patient?"

"But she--my Fanchon--and the child!"

"I knew thy Fanchon, and her father, when thou wast yet a child."

"But they may die before we come, Monsieur."

"These things are in God's hands, Gustave."

"You are not a father; you have never known what makes the world seem
nothing."

"I knew thy Fanchon's father."

"Is that the same?"

"There are those who save and those who die for others. Of thy love thou
wouldst save--the woman hath lain in thine arms, the child is of this.
But to thy Fanchon's father I was merely a priest--we had not hunted
together nor met often about the fire, and drew fast the curtains for
the tales which bring men close. He took me safely on the out-trail, but
on the home-trail he was cast away. Dost thou not think the love of him
that stays as great as the love of him that goes?"

"Ah, thou wouldst go far to serve my wife and child!"

"Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the
stars, its feet for the swords; it continueth, though an army lay waste
the pasture; it comforteth when there are no medicines; it hath the
relish of manna; and by it do men live in the desert."

"But if it pass from a man, that which he loves, and he is left alone,
Monsieur?"

"That which is loved may pass, but love hath no end."

"Thou didst love my Fanchon's father?"

"I prayed him not to go, for a storm was on, but there was the thought
of wife and child on him--the good Michel--and he said: 'It is the
home-trail, and I must get to my nest.' Poor soul, poor soul! I who
carry my life as a leaf in autumn for the west wind was saved, and
he--!"

"We are on the same trail now, Monsieur?"

"See: how soft a night, and how goodly is the moon!"

"It is the same trail now as then, Monsieur?"

"And how like velvet are the shadows in the gorge there below--like
velvet-velvet."

"Like a pall. He travelled this tr