For minutes they knelt there, the silence clothing
them about, the body of the unconscious girl between them. A lost memory
was feeling blindly its way home again. By and by, out of an infinite
past, something struggled to the old woman's eyes, and Parpon's heart
almost burst in his anxiety. At length her look steadied. Memory,
recognition, showed in her face.
With a wild cry her gaunt arms stretched across, and caught the great
head to her breast.
"Where have you been so long, Parpon--my son?" she said.
CHAPTER XV
Valmond's strength came back quickly, but something had given his mind a
new colour. He felt, by a strange telegraphy of fate, that he had been
spared death by fever to meet an end more in keeping with the strange
exploit which now was coming to a crisis. The next day he was going back
to Dalgrothe Mountain, the day after that there should be final review,
and the succeeding day the march to the sea would begin. A move must be
made. There could be no more delay. He had so lost himself in the
dream, that it had become real, and he himself was the splendid
adventurer, the maker of empires.
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