Page 128 - The snake's pass

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116 ! THE SNAKE'S PASS. !
" The sunset
! What am I thinking of ! Good-night
good-night! No, you must not come—it would never
do ! Good night ! " And before I could say a word, she
was speeding down the eastern slope of the mountain.
The revulsion from such a dream of happiness made
me for the moment ungrateful; and I felt that it was
with an angry sneer on my lip that I muttered as I
looked at her retreating form :
" Why are the happy hours so short—whilst misery and
"
anxiety spread out endlessly ?
But as the red light of the sunset smote my face,
a better and a holier feeling came to me; and there
on the top of the hill I knelt and prayed, with the
directness and fervour that are the spiritual gifts of
youth, that every blessing might light on her— the
arriere pensee being—her, my wife. Slowly I went down
the mountain after the sun had set ; and when I got
to the foot, I stood bareheaded for a long time, looking
at the summit which had given me so much happi-
ness.
Do not sneer or make light of such moments, ye whose
lives are grey. Would to God that the grey-haired and
grey-souled watchers of life, could feel such moments
once again
I walked home with rare briskness, but did not
feel tired at all by it—I seemed to tread on air. As I
drew near the hotel, I had some vague idea of hurrying
at once to my own room, and avoiding dinner altogether
as something too gross and carnal for my present exalted