Flower of the Dusk

E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, Emmy, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1908

Copyright, 1908 BY MYRTLE REED McCULLOUGH The Knickerbocker Press, New York


From a painting by Clinton Balmer

Sunset
The pines, darkly purple, towered against the sunset. Behind the hills, the splendid tapestry glowed and flamed, sending far messages of light to the grey East, where lay the sea, crooning itself to sleep. Bare boughs dripped rain upon the sodden earth, where the dead leaves had so long been hidden by the snow. The thousand sounds and scents of Spring at last had waked the world.
The man who stood near the edge of the cliff, quite alone, and carefully feeling the ground before him with his cane, had chosen to face the valley and dream of the glory that, perchance, trailed down in living light from some vast loom of God's. His massive head was thrown back, as though he listened, with a secret sense, for music denied to those who see.