The Everlasting Whisper

Mark King awakened to a sensation of piercing cold. In his weakened condition the chill struck deep, the pain of it sore in his wound. He moved a little to draw his blankets closer about him and, as an awaking impression, found that his strength, even though slowly, was surely returning to him. He was still terribly weak, but, thank God--and Gloria!--that hideous faintness in which he had been unable to stir hand or foot or to speak above a whisper had passed. He filled his lungs with a deep and grateful breath of satisfaction. In a day or two he would be able to carry on again, to do his part.

He turned his head, lifting it a trifle; already he had thought of Gloria, and now he sought her. The fire had burned down to a handful of glowing coals; Gloria, then, must be asleep. For that, too, he was grateful. He had but faint remembrance and dim knowledge of what tasks must have fallen to her lot, but his mind, active from the moment his eyes flew open, was quick to understand that the burdens had fallen upon her shoulders and that she must have been in dire need of rest and sleep.

He could not see her anywhere; no doubt she lay in the shadowy dark beyond the dying fire. He lay back, staring up into the gloom above him. It was thinning; day was coming or had come already. A day with sunshine! They could go out on the crust by the time that he was able to be about---Then he remembered the blankets! Last night he had had all of them, Gloria's as well as his own. He had wanted to make her take her covers and she had put him off, and he had gone to sleep, forgetting! He stirred again, hastily, his hands groping, even his feet moving. He had them yet, his and hers. And she had slept through the cold night with no covering while he, never waking until now, had lain warm and comfortable.

He struggled to turn on his side and got himself raised a little despite the pain from the exertion, seeking her. She must be frozen---Gloria was not in the cave. He sank back, sure of that. For she should be sleeping close by the fire. Then she had gone down again for wood. He frowned and lay staring upward again.

Gloria bringing wood while he lay here like a confounded log. He grew nervously restive at the thought; it was unthinkable that she should do work like that. He saw her in his mind, struggling with the unaccustomed labour. And always he saw her as he had first seen her, a fragile-looking girl, a girl with sweet little hands as soft as rose petals. He remembered her as he had seen her that first day, a vision of loveliness in her fluffy pink dress, her skin like the skin of a baby, her eyes the soft, tender grey eyes of the girl to whom he had given his heart without reservation. The glorious Gloria, all slender delicacy, like a little mountain flower, the Gloria for whom it had been his duty and his high privilege to labour. He must fight to get his strength back, to get on his feet again, to save her from such toil as was no woman's work in the world, certainly never the work for a girl like Gloria.