Her voice died away in the soughing of the wind. For a moment or two he stood beside her--not daring to speak--or to move--or to take that cool, little white hand in his and kiss it--for now she seemed to him more pure than she had ever been--almost holy--like a saint--hallowed by the perfect selflessness of her love.
And as he stood beside her--with head bent and throat choked with sobs of infinite happiness--the darkness of the night fell wholly upon the plain. Nothing around but just this darkness, filled with all the sounds of hidden, pulsating life; overhead the clouds chased one another ceaselessly and restlessly, and from far away the dull murmur of the water came as a faint and rumbling echo.
Andor could no longer see Elsa now, not even her silhouette; but her hand was still on his arm, and he felt the nearness of her presence, and knew that henceforth, throughout the years that were to come, a happiness such as he had never even dared to dream of would be his and hers too, until the day when they would leave the beautiful, mysterious plains for that hidden land beyond the glowing horizon, beyond the rosy dawn and the crimson sunset.
Andor slowly fell on his knees and pressed his burning lips on the small, white hand. Just then in the east there was a rent in the clouds, a lining of silver appeared behind the darkness; the rent became wider and ever wider; the silver turned to lemon-gold, and slowly, majestically, the waning moon--honey-coloured and brilliant--emerged triumphantly, queening it over the plain.
The silvery radiance lit up the vast, silent expanse of nothingness, the huge dome of the sky, the limitless area of stubble and stumps of hemp and dead sunflowers, and where the mysteries of the earth merged in those of the sky--it touched with its subtle radiance that unknown land on the horizon, far away, which no child of the plain has ever reached as yet.
And from the distant village came softly sounding the tinkle of the church bell, tolling for evening prayer.
Hand in hand, Andor and Elsa wandered back to the village--together--hand in hand with memory--hand in hand in never-fading love and understanding and simple trust--hand in hand upon the bosom of the illimitable plain.