wood, yet lit by
yellow light, a place itself for day dreams. "No. I did not see him
fall. He was leading an infantry regiment. He was happy in his death, I
think. One whom the gods loved.--Wait! your scarf has caught."

He loosed it from the branch. She lifted the lace, put it over her head,
and held it with her slender hand beneath her chin. He looked at her,
and his breath came sharply. A shaft of light, deeply gold, struck
across the woodland path. He stood within it, on slightly rising ground
that lifted him above her. The quality of the light gave him a singular
aspect. He looked a visitant from another world, a worn spirit, of fine
temper, but somewhat haggard, somewhat stained. Lines came into Judith's
brow. She stepped more quickly, and they passed from out the wood to a
bare hillside, grass and field flowers to the summit. The little path
that zigzagged upward was not wide enough for two. He moved through the
grass and flowers beside her, a little higher still, and between her and
the sun. His figure was dark; no longer lighted as it was in the wood.
Judith sighed inwardly. "I am so tired that I am fanciful. I should not
have come." She talked on. "When we were children and read 'Pilgrim's
Progress' Unity and I named this the Hill Difficulty. And we named the
Blue Ridge the Delectable Mountains--War puts a stop to reading."

"Yes. The Hill Difficulty! On the other side was the Valley of
Humiliation, was it not?"

"Yes: where Christian met Apollyon. We are nearly up, and the sunset
will be beautiful."

At the top, around a solitary tree, had been built a bench. The two sat
down. The sun was sinking behind the Blue Ridge. Above the mountains
sailed a fleet of little clouds, in a sea of pale gold shut in by purple
headlands. Here and there on the earth the yellow light lingered. Judith
sat with her head thrown back against the bark of the tree, her eyes
upon the long purple coast and the golden sea. Stafford, his sword drawn
forward, rested his clasped hands upon the hilt and his cheek on his
hands. "Are they not like the Delectable Mountains?" she said. "Almost
you can see the shepherds and the flocks--hear the pilgrims singing.
Look where that shaft of light is striking!"

"There is heliotrope all around me," he answered. "I see nothing, know
nothing but that!"

"You do very wrongly," she said. "You pain me and you anger me!"

"Judith! Judith! I cannot help it. If the wildest tempest were blowing
about