"Not until you tell me now—this moment—what I ask you. You went to the mill to try to help Frale out of his trouble. Cassandra, have you loved that boy?"
Her face assumed its old look of masklike impassivity. "I reckoned he might hold himself steady and do right—would they only leave him be—and give him the chance—"
"Cassandra, answer me. Was it for love of him that you gave him your promise?"
Her face grew white, and for a moment she bowed her head on his hand.
"Please, Doctor Thryng, let me tell you the strange part first, then you can answer that question in your own way." She lifted her head and looked steadily in his eyes. "You remember that day we went to Cate Irwin's? When we came to the place where we can see far—far over the mountains—I laughed—with something glad in my heart. It was the same this time when I got to that far open place. All at once it seemed like I was so free—free from the heavy burden—and all in a kind of light that was only the same gladness in my heart.
"I stopped there and waited and thought how you said that time, 'It's good just to be alive,' and I thought if you were there with me and should put your hand on my bridle as you did that night in the rain, and if you should lead me away off—even into the 'Valley of the shadow of death' into those deep shadows below us I would go and never say a word. All at once it seemed as if you were doing that, and I forgot Frale and kept on and on; and wherever it seemed like you were leading me, I went.
"It seemed like I was dreaming, or feeling like a hand was on my heart—a hand I could not see, pulling me and making me feel, 'This way, this way, I must go this way.' I never had been where my horse took me before. I didn't think how I ever could get back again. I didn't seem to see anything around me—only to go on—on—on, and at last it seemed I couldn't go fast enough, until all at once I came to your horse tied there, and I heard strange trampling sounds a little farther on where my horse could not go—and I got off and ran.
"I fell down and got up and ran again; and it seemed as if my feet wouldn't leave the ground, but only held me back. It seemed like they hadn't any more power to run—and—then I came there and I saw." She paused, covering her face with her hand as if to shut out the sight, and slipped to her knees beside him. "Oh, I saw your faces—all terrible—" He put his arm about her and drew her close. "I saw you fall, and your face when it seemed like you were dying as you fought. I saw—" Her sobs shook her, and she could not go on.
"My beautiful priestess of good and holy things!" he said.
She leaned to him then and, placing her arms about him, ever mindful of his hurt, she lifted his head to her shoulder. The flood-gates of her reserve once lifted, the full tide of her intense nature swept over him and enveloped him. It was as light to his soul and healing to his body. How often it had seemed as if he saw her with that halo of light about her, and now it was as if he had been drawn within its charmed radius, as surely he had.