The Everlasting Whisper

Or, at best, not a thing to expend wildly for gowns and gowns and shoes and stockings and limousines; to-night Gloria felt that she had had her fill of vanities like those, that she was done with them; that if, for every moan and agony and slow death and thought of envy Gus Ingle's gold had brought into the world, she could create a smile here and a hope fulfilled there and a glow yonder, she would ask nothing else of the yellow dirt. For dirt or rock or dross it was, and that was as clear as starlight. If her hand but lay in the hand of Mark King, what did gold matter? Or dresses--or what people thought or said of her or him? A strange little smile touched her lips.

"I love you," she whispered, as though Mark were with her--as in her soul he was.

Had there not been a great, glowing love in her heart she would have been afraid. But there was no room for fear. Had she not felt that he was with her and that God was with her she must have felt an unutterable, dreary loneliness; but she was upborne at every step and gloried in every exertion.

And exertion, until she came close to the limits of endurance, was to be hers that white night; hers the knowledge of supreme endeavour. On and on she went across the immense glistening smooth fields through which the trail ahead was the only scar, through groves of black pines whispering, whispering, whispering, down into shadow-filled canons, out into the open again, up and down and on and on, a tiny dot upon the endless wastes. Fatigue came upon her suddenly, when she had forgott

She opened her eyes, she saw the stars, she rose and went on. She had gone miles; how many she could not guess. Always, after for a little while she had dropped down wearily, she rose again and went on; she learned that, though beaten down, one might rise again. That was Mark King's way; it would be her way. Despite the rags about her boots her feet were soon dangerously cold. She passed into the embrace of a forest of black trees casting blacker shadows. Their branches seemed motionless, but they sang to her with hushed voices. And always there was the trail King had made, leading her on; where he had gone before, she followed.

Where he had made slow progress, seeking game and breaking trail, she went swiftly on the packed snow. So, in the full splendour of the moon, she came at last to the final ridge, whence, looking down into the canon, she saw the end of her trail: hanging from a bent pine sapling was what she knew must be his bear. Down the steep slope she went, half sliding, half rolling. In the bed of the ravine she landed softly in the drift; here she rested, sitting in a nest of snow. And before she had stirred to begin the last short span of her journey, there came suddenly out of the silence a strange, quivering cry, bursting out upon her; a sobbing, throbbing scream.