Everett stood before her as if he would block her path. He uncovered her head, and gazed at her with all the passionate longing of a strong nature. He would have put out his arms to draw her close to him, but her sweetness and innocence made him ashamed of the impulse. She was in his power, but he saw that her momentary fear had passed away, for, with her eyes raised to the stars that had appeared above the horizon, she was praying. The man’s mood changed instantly. He could have knelt before her to kiss the hem of her gown.
“Walda, I ask your forgiveness for showing to-night that I am almost unworthy of your trust in me,” he said. “Turn your face to me now, and tell me that you will go away thinking of me as one who would hold you so sacred that he would sacrifice his heart’s desire if in so doing he could assure you of the fulfilment of life’s best promises.”
Walda had folded her hands upon her breast. Having thus made the sign of Zanah, which was believed to ward off all earthly influences, she said:
“Verily, Stephen, thou hast put unrest in my heart, yet even now I feel an abiding faith in thee.”
“I shall try to be worthy of your faith, Walda.”
While they stood close together the curfew-bell sounded from the village belfry. It brought back to earth the man and woman who lingered thus just outside the walls of paradise.
“Good-night, Stephen. God be with thee.”
Walda had again become the prophetess of Zanah. She passed him in the narrow path from which he had stepped aside, and he let her go without a word. She walked a few paces only, her face still uplifted to the sky and her hands still folded across her breast. Then she paused to look backward at the man whose parables had in them a meaning which she had never found in the words of Holy Writ.
And being a woman, as well as a prophetess, she saw that Everett was good to look upon.