sunlit in open pasture--resting on low hills like a soft cloud of
bluish-gray, clinging closely to every line of every peaceful slope.
Stillness everywhere. Still cattle browsing in the distance; sheep
asleep in the far shade of a cliff, shadowing the still stream; even the
song of birds distant, faint, restful. Peace everywhere, but little
peace in the heart of the mother to whose lips was raised once more the
self-same cup that she had drained so long ago. Peace everywhere but for
Phyllis climbing the stairs to her own room and flinging herself upon
her bed in a racking passion of tears. God help the women in the days of
war! Peace from the dome of heaven to the heart of the earth, but a
gnawing unrest for Judith, who walked very slowly down the gravelled
walk and to the stiles, and sat looking over the quiet fields. Only in
her eyes was the light not wholly of sadness, but a proud light of
sacrifice and high resolve. Crittenden was coming that night. He was
going for good now; he was coming to tell her good-by; and he must not
go--to his death, maybe--without knowing what she had to tell him. It
was not much--it was very little, in return for his life-long
devotion--that she should at least tell him how she had wholly outgrown
her girlish infatuation--she knew now that it was nothing else--for the
one man who had stood in her life before him, and that now there was no
other--lover or friend--for whom she had the genuine affection that she
would always have for him. She would tell him frankly--she was a grown
woman now--because she thought she owed that much to him--because, under
the circumstances, she thought it was her duty; and he would not
misunderstand her, even if he really did not have quite the old feeling
for her. Then, recalling what he had said on the drive, she laughed
softly. It was preposterous. She understood all that. He had acted that
little part so many times in by-gone years! And she had always pretended
to take him seriously, for she would have given him mortal offence had
she not; and she was pretending to take him seriously now. And, anyhow,