It is dawn, gray dawn.
Madeline Payne rises from a long untroubled sleep, and flings wide her shutters.
What is this that she sees?
All below her an unbroken mantle of white; all about and above, the waving of snowy plumes, and floating, misty-white loveliness.
The world is clothed in a new garment; the foot-prints of her enemies are hidden, are blotted from the face of the earth. The pathway to the cemetery where they lately bore Edward Percy, is obliterated, too. The grave of the erring man is covered with heaven's whitest, purest mantle of charity and forgetfulness.
Above, below, all about her, is silence and whiteness and peace.
She sinks to her knees, and leaning out, absorbs into herself the restfulness, the peace, the white, pure glory, of the dawn.
"It is a token," she murmurs, softly. "It is God's benediction on my new day, on my new life. It is the beginning of rest. There is nothing old in this fresh, white world. Let the snow mantle rest thus upon my past life. Ah, how rich I am! How rich in friends; how strong in that I have been able to do some good, to make my beloved happy. Never let me repine at my fate. I am rich, and strong, and free. This new, white, beautiful world is mine, when I wish to wander. My friends are mine, when I wish to rest, and find a home."
Ah, 'tis good to know—
"God's greatness shines around our incompleteness;
Round our restlessness, His rest."