"I? I finished school a year ago."
"Come nearer."
"I am here, Jack."
"Time stopped a year ago."
"A year ago to-day."
The same gray eyes, the same face, paler, perhaps.
"We have journeyed far," I sighed, "always together, but in those days
our shadows were white as snow. Am I going to die? There are tears in
your eyes."
They fell on my cheek; her arms fell too, closer, closer, around my
neck.
"Life has begun," she said.
"Life? What was the year that ends to-day? The magic second of life?"
"A year of death, to me!"
Ah, but her soul knows of a life in death! And she shall know it,
too, when her shadow turns whiter than snow. For the Temple of Idols
has closed its doors at the sound of a voice, and an idol of gilt has
turned to flesh and blood.
I-hó!
So shall she know of the life in death when her soul and her body are
one.