occasionally Peneluna could pause and take a long breath
while she beheld the vision that must have helped her friend upon his
isolated way.

To-night, however, she was tired and puzzled and worried. She kept
reverting to Larry: her eyes only lighted on the printed words before
her; her thoughts drifted.

What had been going on in the Forest? Why was the storm breaking?

But suddenly a verse more heavily marked than the others stayed her:

And a highway shall be there, and a way and it shall be called the
way of holiness. The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err
therein.

Over and over Peneluna read and pondered; more and more she puzzled.

"Land o' love!" she muttered at last. "Now these here words mean
something particular. Seems like they must get into me with their
meaning if I hold to 'em long enough. Lord! I don't see how folks can
enjoy religion when you have to swallow it without tasting it."

But so powerful is suggestion through words, that presently the old
woman became hypnotized by them. They sprang out at her like
flashes--one by one. "Highway"--she could grasp that. "A way and it
shall be called"--these words ran into each other but--the "way" held.
"The wayfarer"--well! that was easy; all folks taking to the highway
were wayfarers--"though fools shall not err therein."

Peneluna, without realizing it, was on The Highway over which all
pass, living, seeing, feeling, and storing up experience. In old
Philander's quiet memory-haunted room she was pausing and looking
back; groping forward--understanding as she had never understood
before!

At times, catching the meaning of what the present held, her old face
quivered as a child's does that is lost, and she would _think back_,
holding to some word or look that gave her courage again to fix her
eyes ahead.

"So! so!" she would nod and mutter. "So! so!" It was like meeting
others on The Highway, greeting them, and then going on alone!

That was the hurt of it all--she was alone. If only there had been
someone to hold her hand, to help her when she stumbled, but no! she
was like a creature in a land of shadowy ghosts. Ghosts whom she knew;
who knew her, but they could not linger long with her.

More than the others, Philander persisted, but perhaps that was
because of the pencilled words. They were guide-posts he had left for
her. And strangest of all, this passing to and fro on The Highway
seemed to concern Larry Rivers most of all. L