They left the house together. The sun seemed to be more radiant in its revealings than usual that morning, and as Vashti walked down the path its radiance seemed to linger and dwell about her. “A gold frame about the dearest picture upon earth,” said Sidney, his loving eyes alight with the adoration of first love. And as he saw her that morning she was very beautiful.
Passing the common height of women she had grown more statuesque and slender, the lithe plastic grace of her girlhood had fixed into a gracious, womanly dignity. Her great grey eyes were profoundly mysterious. They looked out desolately from her tragic face, as the altar lamps of a desecrated temple might shine upon the waste places.
The contours of her strong, beautiful face were solemn and suave as the curves of the Greek Acanthus leaf. Above all there was expressed in her whole face and in every line of her body an intense energy, both of thought and movement. With her to think was to act; to will was to strive.
When distressed by thought or tormented by the behests of her imperious will, she was wont to translate the mental energy into physical exercise, and walk until the demon was laid by physical weariness.
She wore that Sunday morning one of the gowns Sidney had so lovingly designed for her. It fell in quasi-Greek draperies straight from shoulder to heel. Conventionalized by the hand of a clever modiste, it was yet almost classic in its severity. It suited her well.
They arrived at the church a little late.
The congregation was already assembled—and such a congregation! Never in all the annals of Dole had there been such an one. The village had simply emptied itself into the church.
Lanty and Mabella were there, the light of perfect peace and love upon their brows.
Ann Serrup and her baby sat in Mrs. Ranger’s pew. That good woman, trembling before the shadow of the “judgment” she was always prophesying, had secured Ann apparently to offer in evidence of good faith, if need arose.
Nathan and Temperance occupied one end of their accustomed pew, crushed into the corner by the overflowing of the unprecedented assembly. And seated in the middle of the church, well back, but just in a line from the pulpit, sat a stranger.