She glanced into his blue eyes. When he led the way she followed. They went out by the little Dutch door and he closed it behind them. It was as though he closed a thousand doors behind her.
She stepped into the path, and it seemed to stretch in an endless vista beyond the top of the hill. She thought of De Soto and La Salle and Champlain, and knew how they must have felt as they turned their backs upon their home friends. And yet, so far as anything had been said, this was a simple venture to the top of a hill to view a sunset. All about her lay the nooks and crannies with which she had been so long familiar. She glanced back at the house. It had receded many miles. She was alone. That was what frightened her. The years before counted for nothing—her old friends counted for nothing. She felt like one daring for the first time into deep water without a supporting arm. And there was no shore back of her. She must go forward across the golden green waves, which sang in unreckoned miles, leagues in front of her. She was alone. She had now only her own heart to guide her. All the tender souls who had ever stood about her might be eager, but they could give no answer to the questions which beset her suddenly on this simple venture to the top of a hill. Her mother, perhaps—but in the end even her mother must have been left behind.
Through the old garden they went, and the flowers smiled back at her. She plucked a half-folded poppy and grasped its stem as a child clings to a skirt. She stopped a moment to play with the others, but he said,
“Come.”
So she went on again up the winding path which she had trod no later than yesterday. The hill loomed before her like one of those purple-capped piles she had seen in the sunset clouds. The sun caught her hair slantwise and brought out the gold in it.
“Are you tired?” he asked, as she lagged a little.
“No. Oh, no,” she answered breathlessly.
She hurried to his side. There was nothing else to do. The path was blocked behind but it was wonderfully clear in front. Not so much as a cobweb barred her progress.
Upon the hill-top they found great banners of purple and gold waving before their eyes against a background of blue and green. Below them the verdure of the rolling fields and maple clumps were also tinted with gold. The air was soft, and yet it sparkled as though fine gold were being sifted down from above. A wonderful world, and they two stood alone in it. Populous cities subsiding their turmoil; men and women going about the ordinary routine of their lives; ships putting to sea and men being carried to hospitals—all those things there might be for others outside the circumference of their eyes, but to them mere phantasies, pleasant and unpleasant. They stood alone here and the fact of grappling kingdoms and great deeds elsewhere were but the tawdriest distant incidents.
Before their eyes the colors strutted the skies like vain peacocks showing their plumage. But always, whether the dye was of crimson or green or purple or the lightest shade of old-rose, the gold shone through it to quicken. It was as though the theme were gold. It came as a prelude. It ran triumphant through every movement, and in the end it controlled the tinted postlude which softened imperceptibly into the golden blue of the finale.