Now that she had gone, the juke box played no more and the lights had brightened and taken on a cold cast.
He could hear the River, hear it whispering a thousand and one sad thoughts.
Some of the thoughts were his, and some of them were Jill's.
At last he left the room and climbed the stairs.
He paused in front of Jill's door. He raised his hand, knuckles turned toward the panel.
He could hear her in the room beyond, hear per bare feet padding on the floor and the rustle of her dress as she slipped out of it for the night.
Presently he heard the faint whisper of sheets and the muffled creak of springs.
And all the while he heard these sounds, he heard the soft, sad susurrus of the River.
At length his hand fell to his side, and he turned and stepped across the hall and let himself into his own room. He closed the door firmly.
Love and death might go together, but love-making and dying did not.
The sound of the River grew louder while he slept, and in the morning it was a steady murmur in his ears.
Breakfast was eggs and bacon and toast and coffee served by ghosts, and gray words spoken in the gray light of dawn.
With the rising of the sun he and Jill cast off, and soon the inn was far behind them.
A little mist midday, they heard the roar of the falls.
It was a gentle roar at first, but it grew louder, decibel by decibel, and the river narrowed and began flowing between bleak gray cliffs.
Jill moved closer to Farrell, and Farrell took her hand.
Rapids danced around them, drenching them at sporadic intervals with ice-cold spray.
The raft lurched beneath them, turned first this way and that at the whim of the River. But it did not capsize, nor would it, for it was the falls that stood for death—not the rapids.
Farrell kept glancing at the girl.
She was staring straight ahead of her as though the rapids did not exist, as though nothing existed except herself, Farrell, and the raft.
He had not expected death to come so soon.
He had thought that life, now that he had met Jill, would linger on.
But apparently this strange country which they had somehow brought into being had no function save to destroy them.
Well, destruction was what he wanted, wasn't it?
A strange encounter in a strange land could not have changed that, any more than it could have changed it for Jill.
A thought struck him, and, raising his voice above the gurgling of the rapids and the roar of the falls, he asked,
"What did you use, Jill?"
"Gas," she answered. "And you?"
"Carbon monoxide."
They said no more.
Late in the afternoon, the River widened again, and the cliffs gradually gave way to gently sloping banks.
Beyond the banks vague hills showed, and the sky seemed to have taken on a bluer cast.
The roar of the falls was deafening now, but apparently the falls themselves were still a considerable distance downstream.
Maybe this wasn't the last day after all.
It wasn't.
Farrell knew it the minute he saw the inn.
It was on the left bank, and it appeared a little while before the sun was about to set.
The current was swift now, and very strong, and it required the combined efforts of both him and the girl to pole the raft in to the small pier.
Breathing hard, and soaked to the skin, they clung to each other till they caught their breaths.
Then they went inside.
Warmth rose up to meet them, and they rejoiced in it.
They chose rooms on the second floor, dried their clothes, made themselves presentable, and joined each other in the dining room for the evening meal. Jill had a roast-beef dinner and Farrell had scalloped potatoes and pork chops. He had never tasted anything so delicious in all his life, and he savored every mouthful. Lord, but it was good to be alive!
Astonished at the thought, he stared at his empty plate.
Good to be alive?
Then why was he sitting in his car with the motor running and the garage doors closed, waiting to die?
What was he doing on the River?
He raised his eyes to Jill's, saw from the bewilderment in them that the face of all the world had changed for her, too, and knew that as surely as she was responsible for his new outlook, he was responsible for hers.
"Why did you do it, Jill?" he asked.
"Why?"
She looked away.