Hearts Resurgent
the well, but I could not drink at first--only listen to
the music of the water, watch it bubble and flash in the
moon."
" I love your mind, Paula LUnster," he said suddenly,
"-every phase of it. By the way-love's a word I never
used before to-day-not even in my work, save as an
abstraction."
She remembered that Selma Cross had said this of
him-that he never used that word.
" You could not have said that to 'Wyndam '- "
" Yes-for Skylark was singing more and more about
her. I soon should have had to say it to 'Wyndam."'
" I loved your fidelity to Skylark," she told him
softly.
Dust of Pelee would fall upon the archipelago for
weeks, but this of starless dark was their supreme night.
" Feel the sting of the spray," he commanded. " Hear
the bows sing! . . . It's all for us-the loveliest of
earth's distances and the sky afterward-"
" But behind," she whispered pitifully.
" Yes-Pelee ' splashed at a ten-league canvas with
brushes of comet's hair."'
The next night had fallen, and the two were through
with the shops of Fort de France. Paula's dress was
white and lustrous, a strange native fabric which the
man regarded with seriousness and awe. He was in
white, too. His right hand was swathed for repairs,
the arm slung, and a thickness of lint was fitted under
his collar. About his eyes and mouth was a slight look
of strain still, which could not live another day before
889