"Not in this case, Cora. At least not from this hour. Come, we are on the ledge now!" said Clarence, as he helped his niece, who with one more high step stood on the top of the plateau, her back to one of the most glorious prairie scenes in nature, her face to a rocky, pine-dotted precipice, against which stood a double log cabin, with a door in the middle and a window on each side.

"There is the hut! Now, shall I take you there, or shall I wait here and let you go alone?" he inquired, as they stood side by side gazing on the hut.

She did not answer. Her eyes were riveted on the door of the cabin, while she leaned heavily on the arm of her uncle.

"I see how it is: you are weakening, losing courage. Let me support you to the door," said Clarence, putting his arm around her waist.

But she drew herself up suddenly.

"Oh, let me go alone, dear Uncle Clarence. My meeting with Rule should be face to face only," she replied, still trembling, but resolute.

"Are you sure you can do it?"

"Oh, yes, yes! My limbs shall no longer refuse their office!"

Clarence threw himself down at the foot of a pine tree to sit and await events.

He took out his watch and looked at the time.

"It is one o'clock," he said to himself. "At two sharp the trail will move, or ought to do so. Perhaps Neville might give us half an hour's grace, though. At any rate, I will wait here three-quarters of an hour, and if in that time I hear nothing from Rothsay or Cora, I shall go down the mountain to explain the situation to Neville."

So saying, Mr. Clarence took out his pipe, filled and lighted it, and smoked.

Corona, like a somnambulist or a blind woman, went slowly toward the log cabin, holding out her hands before her. She soon reached it, leaned for a moment against the log wall to recover her breath and her courage, and then knocked.

The door was instantly opened, and Regulas Rothsay stood on the threshold, still clothed in his hunter's suit of buckskin, but without the fur cap--the same Rule, unchanged except in habiliments and in the length of his untrimmed, tawny hair and beard.

In the instant of meeting she raised her eyes to his, and read in them the undying love of his heart.

With a cry of rapture, of infinite relief and infinite content, she sank upon his doorstep, clasped his knees, and laid her beautiful head down p.r.o.ne on his feet. Only for a second.

He instantly raised her in his arms, pressed her to his heart, kissed her, and kissed her again and again, bore her into the cabin, placed her in the only chair, and knelt down beside her.

She turned and threw her arms around his neck, and dropped her head upon his bosom.

And not a word was spoken between them. The emotions of both were too great for utterance, too great almost for endurance.

They were bathed in a flood of light from the noonday sun pouring its rays through the open door and windows of the cabin. It was the apotheosis of love.

Rule was the first to speak.

"You are welcome, oh, welcome, as life to the dead, my love! But I do not understand my blessedness--I do not," he said, dropping his head on her shoulders, while she still lay on his bosom, in a dream, a trance of perfect contentment.

"Oh, Rule, my husband, my lord, my king! I have come to you, unconsciously led by the Divine Providence! But I have come to you, to stay forever, if you will have me! I have come, never, never, never to leave you, unless you send me away!" she said.

"I send you away, dear? I send away my restored life from me? Ah, you know, you know how impossible that would be! But if I should try to tell you, dear, all that I feel at this moment, I should fail, and talk folly, for no human words can utter this, dear! But I am amazed--amazed to see you here with me, as the dead to the material world might be, on awaking amid the splendors of Paradise!"

"You wish to know how I came?"

"No! I do not! Amazed as I may be, I am content to know that you are here, dear--here! But," he said, looking around on the rudeness of his hut, "oh, what a place to receive you in! I left you in a palace, surrounded by all the splendors and luxuries of civilization! I receive you in a log cabin, bare of even the necessaries and comforts of life!"

he added, gravely.

"But you left me a discarded, broken-hearted woman, and you receive me a restored and happy wife!" she exclaimed.

"But, oh, Cora! can you live with me here, here? Look around you, dear!

Look on the home you would share!--the walls of logs, the chimney of rocks, the floor of stone, the cups and dishes of earthenware, pewter and iron, the--"

She interrupted him, pa.s.sionately:

"But you are here, Rule! You! you! And the log hut is transfigured into a mansion of light! A mansion like the many in our Heavenly Father's House! Oh, Rule! you, you are all, all to me! life, joy, riches, splendor, all to me! Am I all to you, Rule?"

"All of earth and heaven, dear."

"Oh, happy I am! Oh, I thank G.o.d, I thank G.o.d for this happiness! Rule, we will never part again!--never for a single day! But be together, to-day and

'To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow, To the last syllable of recorded time,'

and through the endless ages of eternity! Oh, Rule, how could we ever have mistaken our hearts? How could we ever have parted?"

"The mistake was mine only, dear. After what you told me on our marriage day, I lost all hope, all interest and ambition in life. I had toiled and striven and conquered, for the one dear prize; all my battle of life was fought for you; all my victories were won for you, and were laid at your feet. But when I found that all my love and hope had brought only grief and despair to you--then, dear, all my triumphs turned into Dead Sea fruit on my lips! Then I left all and came into the wilderness; left no trace behind me; effaced myself from your life, from the world, as effectually as I could do it; and so--believing it to be for your good and happiness--died to the world and died to you!"

"Oh, Rule! Miserable woman that I was! I wrecked your life! I wrecked your career!"

"No, dear, no; the mistake, I said, was mine! I should have trusted your heart. I should have given you the time you implored; I should not have fled in the madness of suddenly wounded affection."

"Oh, Rule? if you could have only looked back on me after you went away, only known the anguish your disappearance caused me and the inconsolable sorrow of the time that followed it."

"If I could have supposed it possible even, I would have hastened to you, from the uttermost parts of the earth!"

"And then they reported you dead, murdered by the Comanches, in the ma.s.sacre of La Terrepeur, and sorrow was deepened to despair."

"Yes; I heard of that ma.s.sacre. The report of my death must have arisen in this way: I had lived at La Terrepeur for many months, but had left and come to this place some days before the ma.s.sacre. Some other unfortunate was murdered and burned in the deserted hut, whose bones were found in ashes. I did not return to contradict the report. I wished to be dead to the world, as I was dead to hope, dead to you, dead to myself!"

"Oh, Rule! in all that time how I longed, famished, fainted, died, for your presence! Yes, Rule; died daily."

"My own, dear Cora, how could I have mistaken you? Oh! if I had only known!"

"Ah, yes! if you had only known my heart, or I had only known your whereabouts! In either case we should have met before, and not lost four years out of our lives! But now, Rule," she said, with sudden animation--"now 'We meet to part no more,' as the hymn says. I will never, never, never, leave you for a day! I will be your very shadow!"

"My sunshine, rather, dear!"

"And are you content, Rule?"

"Infinitely."

"And happy?"

"Perfectly."