A deep pink glow
was rising in the sky. There was a rosy dusk on the sea about them.
"My!" said Mab in a soft whisper. "Isn't that lovely?"
Merefleet said nothing. He was watching her beautiful face with a great
hunger in his heart.
Mab was also silent for a while. Presently she turned her face up to his.
"The Gate of Heaven," she said in a whisper. "Isn't it fine?"
He did not speak.
She lifted a hand that felt like an icicle and slipped it into his.
"I guess we shall do this journey together, Big Bear," she said. "I'm
real sorry I made you come if you didn't want to."
"You needn't be sorry," said Merefleet, with a huskiness he could not
have accounted for.
"No?" she said, with a curious little thrill in her voice. "It's real
handsome of you, Big Bear. Because--you know--I ought to have died more
than a year ago. But you are different. You have your life to live."
Merefleet's hand closed tightly upon hers.
"Don't talk like that, child!" he said. "Heaven knows your life is worth
more than mine."
Mab leant her elbow on his knee and gazed thoughtfully over the far
expanse of water. Merefleet knew that she was faint and exhausted,
though she uttered no complaint.
"Shall I tell you a secret, Big Bear?" she said, in the hushed tone of
one on the threshold of a sacred place. "I ended my life long ago. I was
very miserable and Death came and offered me refuge.
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