Young shoots of hazel and ash pricked up here and there from ivy-grown stumps, moss gleamed where it could, through the flood of primroses. The wild green of the mercury, holding its strong shield to the sun, the violets, and the virgin white of the anemones were drowned in the uneven waves and billows and shallows of that sea of primroses. They who come in meekness year by year to roadside hedgerow and homely meadow had come in power. The meek had inherited the earth.
The light wind impotently came, and vainly went. Overhead a lark sang and sang in the blue. But none heeded them. The wind and the song were but a shadow and an echo. They that are the very core of spring hung forgotten on her garments' fringe. All the passion of the world was gathered into the still, upturned faces of the primroses, glowing with a pale light from within. All the love that ever had been, or could be, all rapture of aspiration and service and self-surrender were mirrored there.
Magdalen wept for Fay, as once in bygone years she had wept for Everard: as perhaps some woman of Palestine may have wept when Jesus of Nazareth passed by, speaking as never man spake, and her lover went with him a little way and then turned back.
"There is no sorrow," said the primroses. "There is neither sorrow nor sin. You are of one blood with us. You have come through into light, as we have done, and those others are coming, too. There is no sorrow, only a little pressure through the brown earth. There is no sin, only a little waking and stirring in the dark. Why then grieve, oh little faith! They are all waking and coming. For the Hand that made us made them. The Whisper that waked us, wakes them. The Sun that draws us, draws them. The Sun will have us come."
Fay had already passed by that way, had picked a few primroses, and had gone on. Was she never to be at peace again? Was she never to know what it is to lie down in peace at night, never to know what it is to be without fear. Her whole soul yearned for peace, as the sick man yearns for sleep. Andrea had prayed that she might find peace. Magdalen had told her where peace lay. But all that she had found was despair.
On her way homewards she came again upon the clearing and stopped short. The place seemed to have undergone some subtle change. A tall figure was standing motionless in it. The face was turned away, but Fay recognised it instantly. As she came close Magdalen turned. For a moment Fay saw that she did not recognise her, that she was withdrawn into a great peace and light.
Then recognition dawned in Magdalen's eyes and with it came a look of tenderness unspeakable.