"As I live I love you as the dog loves his master! I am naught save the
dust under your feet, the thorn you brush in the forest, yet like them
I catch and cling! Forgive, Ma'amselle, and if the future is fair for
you, think sometimes in the dusk of Marc Dupre!"
"Hush!" said Maren, catching the hand at her knee, a shaking hand more
slender than her own; "hush, my friend! You break my heart anew. I know
the inmost grace of you, the glory of the love you tell, and be it of
heaven or earth, of angel or man, I would to the Good God there was yet
life enough within me to buy it with my own! I have seen naught so
holy, so worth all price, in the years of my life. It is dear to my
heart as that life itself. Dear as yourself, my more than friend."
In all tenderness she stooped from her fair height and laid her arm
around the shoulders of the youth, drew his head against the beadwork
of McElroy's gift, and kissed him upon the lips,--once, twice,
yearningly, as a mother kisses a weakling child.
At that moment there came, borne on a waking breeze of the night, the
sound of the tom-toms, the yapping of many throats.
"The gods beckon," she said sadly; "this life and love is all awry and
we who are bound against our will must but abide the end.
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