THE  TRAIL OF  '98          309
Suddenly she pointed excitedly.
" Look, dear, look at the rainbow. Isn't it wonderful?    Isn't it beautiful ?"
I gazed in rapt admiration. Across the river a shower had fallen, and the clouds, clearing away abruptly, had left there a twin rainbow of matchless perfection. Its double arch was poised as accurately over the town as if it had been painted there. Each hoop was flawless in form, lovely in hue, tenderly luminous, exquisite in purity. Never had I seen the double iris so immaculate in colouring, and, with its bases resting on the river, it curved over the gold-born city like a frame of ethereal beauty.
" Does it not seem, dear, like an answer to our prayer, an omen of good hope, a promise for the future?"
" Yes, beloved, our future, yours and mine. The clouds are rolling away. All is bright with sunshine once again, and God sends His rainbow to cheer and comfort us. It will not be long now. On the first day of June, beloved, I will come to you, and we will be made man and wife. You will be waiting for me, will you not ? "
" Yes, yes, waiting ever so eagerly, my lover, counting every hour, every minute."
I kissed her passionately, and we held each other tightly for a moment. I saw come into her eyes that look which comes but once into the eyes of a maid, that look of ineffable self-surrender, of passionate abandonment. Life is niggard of such moments, yet can our lives be summed up in them.