"Come with me!" she exclaimed, after a few moments' pause, raising him from the ground.
David took up his crutches and followed her, with such joyful alacrity that his feet scarcely seemed to touch the earth; he appeared already to possess wings instead of crutches.
As they passed the chamber of the dead, he approached his grandfather's coffin, and, kissing the cold face and hands, murmured, with an expression of unwonted joy, "We shall meet soon!"
The women looked at him with surprise; they had never seen him smile thus before, and thought that grief had estranged his mind. Judith left the room, telling them she would soon return, and herself conducted the cripple to the tower, while he followed with a vigour he had hitherto never displayed;—the spirit seemed actually bearing up the fragile body.
When they reached the top, Judith kissed the cripple's brow, and pressed his hand in silence.
David locked the door after her, and threw the key out of the window along with his crutches.
"I shall want them no more," he cried, as Judith passed below the tower. "I wish to be certain that I shall not fail in the hour of temptation."
He then placed himself at the window, and looked out towards the mountains.
Judith returned to the house of mourning, and found the women still weeping round the bier.