The carriage rolled on, leaving a cloud of dust which the evening sunshine converted into a glittering track of glory, and seating herself on a grassy bank, Edna leaned her head against the body of a tree; and all the glory passed swiftly away, and she was alone in the dust.

As the sun went down, the pillared forest aisles stretching westward, filled first with golden haze, then glowed with a light redder than Phthiotan wine poured from the burning beaker of the sun; and only the mournful cooing of doves broke the solemn silence as the pine organ whispered its low coranach for the dead day; and the cool shadow of coming night crept, purple-mantled, velvet-sandaled, down the forest glades.

“Oh! if I had gone away a week ago! before I knew there was any redeeming charity in his sinful nature!  If I could only despise him utterly, it would be so much easier to forget him.  Ah!  God pity me!  God help me!  What right have I to think of Gertrude’s lover—­ Gertrude’s husband!  I ought to be glad that he is nobler than I thought, but I am not!  Oh!  I am not!  I wish I had never known the good that he has done.  Oh, Edna Earl! has it come to this?  How I despise—­how I hate myself!”

Rising, she shook back her thick hair, passed her hands over her hot temples, and stood listening to the distant whistle of a partridge—­ to the plaint of the lonely dove nestled among the pine boughs high above her; and gradually a holy calm stole over her face, fixing it as the merciful touch of death stills features that have long writhed in mortal agony.  Into her struggling heart entered a strength which comes only when weary, wrestling, honest souls turn from human sympathy, seek the hallowed cloisters of Nature and are folded tenderly in the loving arms of Mother Cybele, who “never did betray the heart that loved her.”

  “Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
   And the round ocean and the living air,
   And the blue sky * * * ’Tis her privilege,
   Through all the years of this our life, to lead
   From joy to joy, for she can so inform
   The mind that is within us, so impress
   With quietness and beauty, and so feed
   With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
   Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
   Nor greetings where no kindness is—­nor all
   The dreary intercourse of daily life,
   Shall e’er prevail against us or disturb
   Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
   Is full of blessing”

To her dewy altars among the mountains of Gilead fled Jephthah’s daughter, in the days when she sought for strength to fulfill her father’s battle-vow; and into her pitying starry eyes looked stricken Rizpah, from those dreary rocks where love held faithful vigil, guarding the bleaching bones of her darling dead, sacrificed for the sins of Saul.

CHAPTER XXII.

“Mrs. Andrews writes that I must go on with as little delay as possible, and I shall start early Monday morning, as I wish to stop one day at Chattanooga.”