For the time being everybody forgot all about the Masked Lady, who sat alone much of the time, and regarded this person or that with steadfast eyes through her mask.
To speak quite plainly, the Masked Lady had been putting off to the last possible moment a step from which she could not help but shrink.
The time had come for Everychild to take that dread journey to the Mountain of Reality. She had given him as many days of grace as she could possibly permit. And at last she said solemnly:
"It shall be to-morrow."
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE MOUNTAIN OF REALITY
The next day the giant, standing out on the rampart where every one could see and hear him, was shouting—"The world is full of evil! The world is full of evil!" And his friends thought sadly of that day, now only a little while ago, when it had been his wont to say that the world was full of good—that, indeed, everything was good if you looked at it in the right way. But suddenly he stopped shouting and lifted his head.
It was the first time he had been seen to lift his head in a number of days, and it seemed very good to see him do this. He seemed to be listening intently, and also with a certain faint, dawning hope.
At the very same time Everychild lifted his head also and listened, but as he did so he clasped his hands with dread.