was late in the afternoon. So I went on again, and at
last the green road came out into the highway, and I looked up and saw
another town on a high place with a great church in the middle of it,
and when I went up to it there was a great organ sounding from within,
and the choir was singing.'

There was a rapture in Darnell's voice as he spoke, that made his story
well-nigh swell into a song, and he drew a long breath as the words
ended, filled with the thought of that far-off summer day, when some
enchantment had informed all common things, transmuting them into a
great sacrament, causing earthly works to glow with the fire and the
glory of the everlasting light.

And some splendour of that light shone on the face of Mary as she sat
still against the sweet gloom of the night, her dark hair making her
face more radiant. She was silent for a little while, and then she
spoke--

'Oh, my dear, why have you waited so long to tell me these wonderful
things? I think it is beautiful. Please go on.'

'I have always been afraid it was all nonsense,' said Darnell. 'And I
don't know how to explain what I feel. I didn't think I could say so
much as I have to-night.'

'And did you find it the same day after day?'

'All through the tour? Yes, I think every journey was a success. Of
course, I didn't go so far afield every day; I was too tired. Often I
rested all day long, and went out in the evening, after the lamps were
lit, and then only for a mile or two. I would roam about old, dim
squares, and hear the wind from the hills whispering in the trees; and
when I knew I was within call of some great glittering street, I was
sunk in the silence of ways where I was almost the only passenger, and
the lamps were so few and faint that they seemed to give out shadows
instead of light. And I would walk slowly, to and fro, perhaps for an
hour at a time, in such dark streets, and all the time I felt what I
told you about its being my secret--that the shadow, and the dim lights,
and the cool of the evening, and trees that were like dark low clouds
were all mine, and mine alone, that I was living in a world that nobody
else knew of, into which no one could enter.

'I remembered one night I had gone farther. It was somewhere in the far
west, where there are orchards and gardens, and great broad lawns that
slope down to trees by the river. A great red moon rose that night
through mists of sunset, and thin, filmy clouds, and I wandered by a