“Is it love that maketh my heart beat? Is it love that casteth out fear while thou hast thine arms around me?” she asked, presently. “What meaning is there in a kiss that it should make me ashamed and yet happy, Stephen? Verily, thy kisses are not like the kisses of good-fellowship that the elders give one another at the Untersuchung; they are not like the kisses the mothers have pressed upon my forehead.”
“Of course they are not,” Everett said, and he laughed aloud in the joy the knowledge of her love gave him. “Look up, Walda, and let me kiss you again, and you will learn that the kiss of love is the token that unlocks the hearts of men and women.”
She looked into his eyes, and their lips met.
“Thou speakest truly, Stephen,” Walda said. “Let us go back to the village. I would think of thee and of love in solitude and with much prayer. This hour hath robbed me of the mantle of the prophetess.”
“But it has given you the highest heritage of life. It is better to be a wife than a prophetess, Walda.”
XVII
Kneeling by the window in her bare little room, Walda tried to pray after the manner of Zanah, yet no words of penitence came to the lips that had been touched by a lover’s kiss. The soul that the good elders had turned towards heaven as a mirror upon which the divine will might be reflected held an earthly image. A human love was enshrined in the heart that had been consecrated to God. As the girl prostrated herself, the discipline of long years of religious training was forgotten. Her Zanah life fell from her. New emotions swept over her, submerging her old character and bringing strange, sweet hopes. The soul of the priestess was consumed by the supreme passion of earth, and in its place flamed the soul of a woman.
One by one the lowly duties that had occupied her days came up before her. She recalled the pious fervor that had made them pleasant. Looking back to the time when Everett’s chance words in the sick-room had tempted her to enjoy the beauties of sky and field, she realized how far she had grown away from her former self since the almost imperceptible beginning of the fuller life which she had unconsciously entered. Kneeling there in the darkness, for the first time in all her life she rebelled against the laws of Zanah. Her youth and womanhood demanded the privilege of accepting human love. Everett’s influence was over her, and she gave little thought to the future. It was enough to feel the exaltation of love, to comprehend that she stood at the threshold of the ultimate mystery of life. She looked out at the stars that shone above the far horizon. She felt that she had ceased to belong to Zanah. It was as if she had entered into a larger kinship with all nature. Love had wrought the miracle that puts away all one’s years and leads the soul into a new existence independent of the past, expectant of the future.
Long after the village had gone to sleep Everett stayed out in the starlight, thinking of the weeks he had spent in Zanah, and of the woman who would henceforth claim his life’s allegiance. He dreamed of the future that was his and Walda’s. He saw the girl’s stunted life expanding under its new environments. His thoughts wandered over imaginary years, and he beheld her clad in the ripened charm of maturity. He saw the light of happiness in her eyes reflected in the eyes of their children. Sometimes, perhaps, they would look back to Zanah and thank God that among the middle-aged mothers with dwarfed minds and cramped souls there was none that bore the name of Walda Kellar.
For Walda the next day dawned with mysterious splendor. Zanah had fallen under a spell of enchantment, yet as the village awoke to life all its influences once more stole over her. Looking out of her window, she began to remember that she had been the prophetess of Zanah. She watched the men and boys walk leisurely towards the factory. Ox-teams creaked up the narrow street. The children solemnly wandered schoolward. She could no longer put her father or Gerson Brandt from her thoughts. The realization that she would give them pain burst upon her.