When John Scott returned to the stables his pulses were still throbbing
with joy and he trod the grass of the Elysian Fields. Young love is pure
and noble, a spontaneous emotion that has nothing in it of calculation,
and the wild and strange setting of his romance merely served to deepen
his feelings.

He was the young crusader again, a knight coming to rescue his lady from
the hands of the infidels. He had made the impossible possible. He had
seen her and spoken with her, and despite his peasant clothes and his
position of a menial that he had willingly taken, she had known him at
once. He had seen the deep color flushing into her face and the light
like the first arrow of dawn spring into her eyes, and he knew that he
had not come in vain.

He put so much vigor into his work, and he whistled and sang, low but so
joyously that the stolid Walther took notice.

"Why are you so happy, you Castel?" he asked.

"I've seen the sun, Herr Walther."

"There is nothing uncommon about that. The sun has risen every morning
for a million years and more."

"But not this sun, Herr Walther. It never rose before and it's the
brightest and most glorious of them all."

Walther looked up at the sun. It was in truth bright, casting a golden
glow over all the mountains, but he saw nothing new about it.

"It's a fine sun, as you say," he said, "but it's the same as ever. Ah,
you're French after all--in blood, I mean, I don't question your
loyalty--and you see things that are not. Too much imagination, Castel.
Quit it. It's not wholesome."

"But I'm enjoying it, Herr Walther. Imagination is a glorious thing. You
see the same sun that I do in so far as our eyes are able to look upon
it, but you do not see it in the same way. It appears far more splendid
and glorious to me than it does to you. Our eyes are mirrors and mine
reflect today with much more power and much more depth of color than
yours do."

Walther stared at him, comprehending but little of what he had said, and
shook his head slowly.

"Your French blood is surely on top now, Castel," he said. "I should
call you a little mad if you didn't work so hard and with such a good
heart."

"Ah, well, if we enjoy our madness, pray let us remain so."

Walther shook his head again, and walked away some distance where he
stopped, and looked long at his new helper who toiled with uncommon
diligence but who whistled and sang in a low but happy manner as he
toiled. A new thoug