Chapter XXI.
An hour later found the Warlow family at the foot of Antelope Butte,whither they had all driven to make a search for--what they shrank fromsaying. They had been there only a short time when they saw the Estillcarriage coming. When it drew near they discovered that it was Mrs.Estill and Mora, who, when they were assisted to alight, said they hadseen the Warlow carriage with their field-glass, and suspecting themeaning of its visit to the butte, they had hurried up to join thesearch with their friends.
As Clifford, Rob, and Ralph were carefully searching the face of thedeclivity, Mrs. Warlow told Mrs. Estill of the remarkable fact that shehad also seen that mystic light on the night it had disappeared fromEstill Ranch; then, as Mora drew near, she gave a circumstantial accountof the event, which caused her hearers to exchange looks of perplexedamazement.
Mora became thoughtfully silent, and, leaving the others, she wanderedrestlessly back and forth at the foot of the bluff, watching thesearchers intently.
She was startled at length by a cry of astonishment from Clifford, andwith the others she hastened up the steep acclivity to where he stood ina recess of the cliff. When she reached his side he was leaning heavilyagainst the rocky wall, white and trembling.
"Oh, Clifford! speak! what is it?" she cried, breathless with a strangedread.
He could only point to the face of the rock with an unsteady finger,while the sweat-drops rained down from his white face, wrung by an agonyof emotion which he vainly strove to repress.
Sinking down upon the sloping mound, matted with grass, and kneelingthere at the foot of the cliff she read with a startled gaze theinscription which was carved in faint, moss-grown letters, upon themagnesian stone:--
"My Ivarene, my lost love, lies dead beside me with our little child,cold and still, on her breast. I am wounded and dying; but death issweet now. We were coming here to watch for the trains when we wereassaulted by the strange hunter, who shot us both. My love only breathedone breath. I carried her here. The child was pierced by the same shot.My eyes are growing dim; but I welcome death. Oh, farewell, brightworld! I feel my life ebbing fast away, but would not stay without mydarling. I go to meet her where there will be no more parting. Oh, thejoy and bliss to see her smile again! It makes me long for death. Weshall live again! Bru--"
With a wild cry of agonized grief, Mora covered her face, while theothers read, with streaming eyes, that last message from the tomb. Then,as they drew back and waited with broken sobs and smothered weeping,Ralph and Robbie began tenderly to remove the _debris_ and soil whichtime had formed into a mound below the inscription.
When, at last, there was revealed two skeletons, locked together in thelast clasp of love, which even death could not sever, Maud cried aloudwith a wail of anguish:--
"Oh, _can this be the last_ of beautiful Ivarene and dear, brave Bruce?"
Choking back their sobs, they all knelt in a circle, while Mrs. Warlow'svoice rose in a passionate, fervid prayer; then tenderly, with lovingcare, they carried the remains down to the Warlow carriage, leaving Moraand Clifford still lingering by the vacant mound.
They stood in silence a moment, the only sound the soft rustle ofwild-ivy that half draped the cliff in its mottled foliage of crimson,green, and bronze; the radiant sunlight from the cloudless sky lit upthe sunflowers and gentian that grew in stunted clusters on thehillside, while the sumac flaunted its plumes of scarlet, gold, andpurple along the rifts of the white, rocky wall.
Lifting their gaze from the open grave, their eyes met in a swift flashof joy, while a half-puzzled look of delight and recognition struggledover their faces; then, bounding lightly over the open grave, Cliffordwhispered in a tone of unspeakable love and yearning:--
"Oh, Ivarene, my sweetheart of long ago, we meet at last!"
"Then it is as I have dreamed--and you are Bruce!" she answered, with asob of joy, while springing into his outstretched arms.
"Yes, love, I am convinced that we meet again after all these years ofwaiting. Though to the world we may be only Mora and Clifford, yet,darling, to each other we will ever be Ivarene and Bruce," he replied,while raining kisses upon her upturned, radiant face.
Ah! how can I tell of the serene wedding morn that marked that happy daywhen Clifford and Mora paced back and forth on the sunlighted terrace atthe Stone Corral, now no longer a modest cottage, but a stately thoughquaint mansion of red sandstone. The tender, blue haze of Indian summerbrooded over the valley, where the fields of wheat shone dewy and green,and the newly-mown meadows stretched away like a verdant carpet far outonto the highlands, miles upon miles--all their own. The marble fountainthrew a glittering sheen of silver high in the air, while the breezeswept the blossom-laden tendrils that trailed down the showy vases, andswayed the limbs of the old elm to and fro about the gables of theelegant home.
"Oh, Ivarene, dear love! how strange it is to take up the thread of ourhappiness on the spot, almost where our lives went out in such blackdespair just twenty-six years ago! I know why you wish to have ourbridal here, darling; for it was here, at the Old Corral, that ourformer trials overwhelmed us, and it is doubly sweet to begin happinessagain on this spot."
"Bruce, my darling, I can remember nothing of the old life and itstrials, that ended at our grave on Antelope Butte; but my love foryou--ah! that can never perish. It has survived even the horrors of thatlonesome tomb. It is strange we only recognized each other at that emptygrave; but I had always felt such a longing to meet some one, that now Iknow it was the spirit within me crying dumbly for you; and oh! theunutterable content when at length I met you, and the joy of only beingwith you now,--it is more than Eden!"
"Sweet Ivarene, do you ever ponder on what eternity means for us, now wehave its secret?--a limitless succession of life in all its phases; thatthe grave is only the door to life again, when we can choose anotherbirth--passing through all the freshening scenes of infancy and youth;growing up again as boy and girl; seeking each other out for anotherunion like this, where we shall always recognize each other, but forgetthe old life,--it is _this_ which gives hope and zest to this happy day;for we know that we shall really never be separated."
"We will pass a happy life together, my love; and from out our abundancewe can sweeten the lives of many others who have not been blessed withgreat riches," he continued, in a tender tone.
"Yes, dear Bruce, and the treasure of Monteluma should be dedicated tocharity alone, for we have enough without it," she replied; then,pointing to a newly-sodded grave at the foot of the lawn--a mound thatwas marked by a marble slab on which only was engraved,
"BRUCE AND IVARENE,"
she continued, with a smile of ineffable peace on her beaming face:"That is for the eyes of the world, dear Bruce; but we know that we arethey, only masquerading under the names of Mora and Clifford."
At that moment Maud, Ralph, Hugh, and Grace came on to the terraceabove, and Hugh, in a voice husky with emotion, said:--
"Come, Mora and Clifford, the minister waits."
Tarrying a moment, while the others moved on along the terrace, thehappy pair stood gazing out over the tranquil valley, then, drawingaside her veil, which trailed liked a mist down over her robe ofglistening satin, white as a snow-drift, she raised a radiant face tohis, and said:--
"My Bruce, we live again--we live again!"
Stooping, while their lips met, he murmured:--
"Yes, Ivarene, dear bride, and this--oh! this is heaven!"
A moment more, and they had disappeared within the flower-wreatheddoorway.
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