uds Break]

Stirred to the depths by the pity of it, Edith brushed away a tear or
two. She was not at all sleepy, but drew the blanket closer around her,
for the night grew chill as the earth swept farther and farther away
from the sun. The clouds had begun to drift away, and faintly, through
the shadow, glimmered one pale star. Gradually, others came out, then a
white and ghostly moon, with a veil of cloud about it, grey, yet
iridescent, like mother-of-pearl.

Blown far across the seas of space by a swiftly rising wind, the clouds
vanished, and all the starry hosts of heaven marched forth, challenging
the earth with javelins of light.

"Starbreak," murmured Edith, "up there and in my soul."

The blue rays of the love-star burned low upon the grey horizon, that
star towards which the eyes of women yearn and which women's feet are
fain to follow, though, like a will-o'-the-wisp, it leads them through
strange and difficult places, and into the quicksands.

[Sidenote: Fellowship with the World]

The body grows slowly, but the soul progresses by leaps and bounds.
Through a single hurt or a single joy, the soul of a child may reach
man's estate, never to go backward, but always on. And so, through a
great love and her own complete comprehension of its meaning, Edith had
grown in a night out of herself, into a beautiful fellowship with the
whole world.

Strangely uplifted and forever at peace, she rose from her chair. The
blanket slipped away from her, and her loosened hair flowed back over
her shoulders, catching gleams of starlight as it fell. She stretched
out her arms in yearning toward Alden, her husband, Madame--indeed, all
the world, having come out of self into service; through the love of one
to the love of all.

Then, through the living darkness, came the one clear call: "Mine?"

Unmistakably the answer surged back: "In all the ways of Heaven and for
always, I am thine."

XIX

If Love Were All

[Sidenote: When the Shadows Lengthen]

The last of the packing was done, and four trunks stood in the lower
hall, waiting for the expressman. Alden had not seen Edith that day,
though he had haunted the house since breakfast, waiting and hoping for
even a single word.

She had been too busy to come down to luncheon, and had eaten only a
little from the tray Madame sent to her room. She was to take the early
train in the morning.

The afternoon shadows had begun to lengthen when she came down, almos