The frown on her face changed to a look of awful sadness, but she put
her hand into Thornton's while saying to Orville: "I can not go there
with you--not upward. I must enter the valley with him." She moved
away, her hand still in Thornton's. Orville watched them go, only
wondering why he had no regrets.
"Michael," he said, "I loved her on earth. Why am I unmoved to see her
leave me?"
[Illustration: "But when their feet touched the road, they turned and
looked their terror."]
But Michael answered, "It is not strange in The Land of the Dead.
There are stranger partings here; but all of them are like
yours--tearless for those who see the Cross."
Thornton and Marion by this time had entered the valley road and were
on the other side of the rock gateway. But when their feet touched the
road they turned and looked their terror. Suddenly they recoiled and
struck viciously at each other. Then they parted. With the wide road
between them they went down into the valley and the haze together.
Orville read the words on the rock gateway, for now they stood out so
that he could see plainly, and they were: "THE ROAD WITHOUT ENDING."
"Michael," he said, "what does it mean?"
Michael answered, "She could not see the Cross here, who would not see
it on earth. It repelled him, who so often had repelled it in life."