ow the summit of a peak crowned with a few
old cedars, from whose laborious growth of dull, dark foliage long
streamers of gray moss waved in the wind. There were scattered crags
about their roots, against whose lichen-covered sides the autumn sun
shone fruitlessly; and from the leafless forests in the deep valley
beneath rose a whispering sound, as if they shuddered, and were stirred
by some foreboding horror.

Violet made her way to this height as eagerly as her lessened strength
and panting heart allowed; but as she lifted her eyes from the narrow
path she had tracked upward, they rested on the last face she wished to
meet, the gloomy visage of Roger Pierce. The girl hesitated, and would
have drawn back, but Roger bade her come near.

"There is no need of your going, Violet," said he; and she crouched
quietly on the rock at his feet, silently, but with fixed eyes,
regarding the double nature before her, the Man and his Shadow.

Still upward from the valley crept that low shiver of dread; the pale
sun shed its listless light on the gray rocks and dusky cedars; the
silent unexpectant earth seemed to have paused; all things were wrapt in
vague awe and dim apprehension; some inexpressible fatality seemed to
oppress life and breath.

A sudden impulse of escape, desperate in its strength, possessed Violet;
perhaps to name that Thing that clung so closely to Roger might shake
its power,--and with a trembling, vibrating voice she spoke:--

"Roger,--you are thinking of the Shadow?"

He did not move, nor at once speak; no new expression stirred his dark
face; at length he answered, in a voice that seemed to come from some
lips far away, in an unechoing distance:--

"The Shadow?--Yes. I see it in all faces. It lies on the valley yonder;
in the air; on every mortal brow and lip it gathers deeper yet. Violet,
you, too, share the Shadow!"

Slowly, as if his words froze her, Violet rose and turned toward him;
a light shone from her eyes that melted their dark depths into the
radiance of high noon; and she spoke with a thrilled, yet unfaltering
tone:--

"Yes, I share it, it is true. I feel and see the gloom; but if the
Shadow haunts me, Roger Pierce, ask your own heart who cast it there!
When we were first friends, I knew nothing of that darkness. I tried
with all purity and compassion to draw you upward into light; and for
reward, you have wrapped your own blackness round me, and hate your own
doing. My work is over,--is