The lightning was about them, and they raced to the booming of the
thunder. Heavy raindrops began to fall, and the wind was a power to drive
the riders on. Its voice shrilled above the diapason of the thunder; the
forest swung to its long cry. When the horses turned from the wide into
the narrow road, they could no longer go abreast. Mirza took the lead, and
the bay fell a length behind. The branches now hid the sky; between the
flashes there was Stygian gloom, but when the lightning came it showed far
aisles of the forest. There was the smell of rain upon dusty earth, there
was the wine of coolness after heat, there was the sense of being borne
upon the wind, there was the leaping of life within the veins to meet the
awakened life without. Audrey closed her eyes, and wished to ride thus
forever. Haward, too, traveling fast through mist and rain a road whose
end was hidden, facing the wet wind, hearing the voices of earth and sky,
felt his spirit mount with the mounting voices. So to ride with Love to
doom! On, and on, and on! Left behind the sophist, the apologist, the
lover of the world with his tinsel that was not gold, his pebbles that
were not gems! Only the man thundering on,--the man and his mate that was
meant for him since time began! He raised his face to the strife above, he
drew his breath, his hand closed over the hand of the woman riding with
him. At the touch a thrill ran through them both; had the lightning with a
sword of flame cut the world from beneath their feet, they had passed on,
immortal in their happiness. But the bolts struck aimlessly, and the
moment fled. Haward was Haward again; he recognized his old acquaintance
with a half-humorous, half-disdainful smile. The road was no longer a road
that gleamed athwart all time and space; the wind had lost its trumpet
tone; Love spoke not in the thunder, nor seemed so high a thing as the lit
heaven. Audrey's hand was yet within his clasp; but it was flesh and
blood that he touched, not spirit, and he was glad that it was so. For
her, her cheek burned, and she hid her eyes. She had looked unawares, as
by the lightning glare, into a world of which she had not dreamed. Its
portals had shut; she rode on in the twilight again, and she could not
clearly remember what she had seen. But she was sure that the air of that
country was sweet, she was faint with its beauty, her heart beat with
violence to its far echoes. Moreover, she was dimly aware that in the
moment when she had looked there had been a baptism. She had thought of
herself as a child, as a girl; now and for evermore she was a woman.