"Pete," she asked tremulously, and he felt her drawing even closer
to his side, "Pete, don't you want--you _do_ want--I know--I mean,
will you, would you--marry me?"
He was dumb as a rock, and gray. His hand opened; he stared from her
to the impossible intruder, the worker of the miracle, or rather for
he felt like a beast trapped, the strange layer of the snare. For
an instant the lake and the forest and the red sky turned in a great
wheel before his eyes. Then he caught Sylvie's wrist almost brutally
in his hand. "Be quiet!" he said; it was the savage speaking to his
woman. "You've gone mad. Come with me. As for you, sir, my marrying
or not marrying is none of your business--"
The minister looked sadly up into the young man's white and rigid
face.
"God be with you!"
He bowed, turned and walked back along the beach, hands locked behind
his broad tweed back, his head bent.
Pete tightened his grip on Sylvie's arm. "Come," he said to her as
harshly as before. "We must hurry. It's nearly night."
Sylvie set her small teeth tight, bent down her head, and followed
him without a word. Their silence seemed to grow into a pressure,
a weight. It bent Pete's shoulders and Sylvie's slender neck, and
whitened their lips.
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