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Title: The Worshipper of the Image

Author: Richard Le Gallienne

Release Date: January 23, 2004 [EBook #10812]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Brendan Lane, Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders

The Worshipper of the Image

By
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD
LONDON AND NEW YORK
1900

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

TO SILENCIEUX

THIS TRAGIC FAIRY-TALE

Contents

CHAPTER

I. SMILING SILENCE

II. THE COMING OF SILENCIEUX

III. THE NORTHERN SPHINX

IV. AT THE RISING OF THE MOON

V. SILENCIEUX SPEAKS

VI. THE THREE BLACK PONDS

VII. THE LOVERS OF SILENCIEUX

VIII. A STRANGE KISS FOR SILENCIEUX

IX. THE WONDERFUL WEEK

X. SILENCIEUX WHISPERS

XI. WONDER IN THE WOOD

XII. AUTUMN IN THE VALLEY

XIII. THE HUMAN SACRIFICE

XIV. A SONG OF THE LITTLE DEAD

XV. SILENCIEUX ALONE IN THE WOOD

XVI. THE FIRST TALK ON THE HILLS

XVII. ANTONY ALONE ON THE HILLS

XVIII. THE SECOND TALK ON THE HILLS

XIX. LAST TALK ON THE HILLS

XX. ANTONY'S JUDGMENT UPON SILENCIEUX

XXI. "RESURGAM!"

XXII. THE STRANGENESS OF ANTONY

XXIII. BEATRICE FULFILS HER DESTINY

The Worshipper of the Image

CHAPTER I

SMILING SILENCE

Evening was in the wood, still as the dreaming bracken, secretive,
moving softly among the pines as a young witch gathering simples. She
wore a hood of finely woven shadows, yet, though she drew it close,
sunbeams trooping westward flashed strange lights across her haunted
face.

The birds that lived in the wood had broken out into sudden singing as
she stole in, hungry for silence, passionate to be alone; and at the
foot of every tree she cried "Hush! Hush!" to the bedtime nests. When
all but one were still, she slipped the hood from her face and listened
to her own bird, the night-jar, toiling at his hopeless love from a
bough on which already hung a little star.

Then it was that a young man, with a face shining with sorrow, vaulted
lightly over the mossed fence and