The old minister came up beside her, and stood looking for a time out toward the Peak. The mist which all day had hung so low around the foot of the hills had risen appreciably, and now the Cleft itself was beginning to clear, revealing the dark base of the Peak itself. A single ray of sunshine shot out of the west and struck straight into the Cleft.
"Look, look, Mrs. Trent," exclaimed Doctor McMurray. "The Peak is beginning to show. Don't you think the weather will clear? Ah, it must clear, it must before they come, before the lawyers come. Tell me, do you not think it will?"
Mrs. Trent's face was very pale. Her eyes gleamed very large and feverishly bright from beneath her lashes, as they searched the opposite side of the valley. For some moments she kept silent, and for the second time that afternoon there was no sound in the room save the labored breathing of the man and woman. At last there became audible the slowly increasing creak of a carriage, and the splashing of a horse's hoofs through the sea of mud in the roadway. Doctor McMurray heard, and he knew that Mrs. Trent heard also.
"Mrs. Trent," he said softly, "Mrs. Trent, are the clouds lifting? Can you see the Peak?"
Still the woman kept silent. The sounds of the wheels grew momentarily louder, the voices of men talking broke in upon them, and then the carriage stopped before the door.
"Mrs. Trent," pleaded the doctor for the last time, "tell me, can you see the Peak?"
He heard the men climb out of the carriage and come up to the door, then a loud knock.
Mrs. Trent at last broke her silence.
"Doctor McMurray," she said, speaking quite softly, "Doctor McMurray, do you see? The Peak is clear. All the clouds have lifted!"
Literary Monthly, 1905.