the last quiet began for david. he had heard the sounds of departure. he had heard the rumble of the oxwains begin and go slowly toward the gate with never the sound of a human voice, and he pictured, with a grim satisfaction, the downcast faces and the frightened, guilty glances, as his servants fled, conscious that they were betraying their master. it filled him with a sort of sulky content which was more painful than sorrow. but before the sound of the wagons died out the wind blew back from the gate of the garden a thin, joyous chorus of singing voices. they were leaving him with songs!
he was incredulous for a time. he felt, first, a great regret that he had let them go. then, in an overwhelming wave of righteousness, he determined to dismiss them from his mind. they were gone; but worse still, the horses were gone, and the valley around him was empty! he remembered the dying prophecy of abraham, now, as the stern elijah had repeated it. he had let the world into the garden, and the tide of the world's life, receding, would take all the life of the garden away beyond the mountains among other men.
the feeling that connor had been right beset him: that the four first masters had been wrong, and that they had raised david in error. yet his pride still upheld him.
that day he went resolutely about the routine. he was not hungry, but when the time came he went into the big kitchen and prepared food. it was a place of much noise. the great copper kettles chimed and murmured whenever he touched them, and they spoke to him of the servants who were gone. half of his bitterness had already left him and he could remember those days in his childhood when abraham had told him tales, and zacharias had taught him how to ride at the price of many a tumble from the lofty back of the gentle old mare. yet he set the food on the table in the patio and ate it with steady resolution. then he returned to the big kitchen and cleansed the dishes.
it was the late afternoon, now, the time when the sunlight becomes yellow and loses its heat, and the heavy blue shadow sloped across the patio. a quiet time. now and again he found that he was tense with waiting for sounds in the wind of the servants returning for the night from the fields, and the shrill whinny of the colts coming back from the pastures to the paddocks. but he remembered what had happened and made himself relax.
there was a great dread before him. finally he realized that it was the coming of the night, and he went into the room of silence for the last time to find consolation. the book of matthew had always been a means of bringing the consolation and counsel of the voice, but when he opened the book he could only think of the girl, as she must have leaned above it. how had she read? with a smile of mockery or with tears? he closed the book; but still she was with him. it seemed that when he turned in the chair he must find her waiting behind him and he found himself growing tense with expectation, his heart beating rapidly.
out of the room of silence he fled as if a curse lived in it, and without following any conscious direction, he went to the room of ruth.
the fragrance had left the wild flowers, and the great golden blossoms at the window hung thin and limp, the bell lips hanging close together, the color faded to a dim yellow. the green things must be taken away before they molded. he raised his hand to tear down the transplanted vine, but his fingers fell away from it. to remove it was to destroy the last trace of her. she had seen these flowers; on account of them she had smiled at him with tears of happiness in her eyes. the skin of the mountain lion on the floor was still rumpled where her foot had fallen, and he could see the indistinct outline where the heel of her shoe had pressed.
he avoided that place when he stepped back, and turning, he saw her bed. the dappled deerskin lay crumpled back where her hand had tossed it as she rose that morning, and in the blankets was the distinct outline of her body. he knew where her body had pressed, and there was the hollow made by her head in the pillow.
something snapped in the heart of david. the sustaining pride which had kept his head high all day slipped from him like the strength of the runner when he crosses the mark. david fell upon his knees and buried his face where her head had lain, and his arms curved as though around her body. connor had been right. he had made himself his god, and this was the punishment. the mildness of a new humility came to him in the agony of his grief. he found that he could pray, not the proud prayers of the old days when david talked as an equal to the voice, but that most ancient prayer of sinners:
"o lord, i believe. help thou mine unbelief!"
and the moment the whisper had passed his lips there was a blessed relief from pain. there was a sound at the window, and turning to it, he saw the head and the arched neck of glani against the red of the sunset—glani looking at him with pricked ears. he went to the stallion, incredulous, with steps as short as a child which is afraid, and at his coming glani whinnied softly. at that the last of david's pride fell from him. he cast his arms around the neck of the stallion and wept with deep sobs that tore his throat, and under the grip of his arms he felt the stallion trembling. he was calmer, at length, and he climbed through the window and stood beside glani under the brilliant sunset sky.
"and the others, o glani," he said. "have they returned likewise? timeh shall live. i, who have judged others so often, have been myself judged and found wanting. timeh shall live. what am i that i should speak of the life or the death of so much as the last bird in the trees? but have they all returned, all my horses?"
he whistled that call which every gray knew as a rallying sound, a call that would bring them at a dead gallop with answering neighs. but when the thin sound of the whistle died out there was no reply. only glani had moved away and was looking back to david as if he bid the master follow.
"is it so, glani?" said the master. "they have not come back, but you have returned to lead me to them? the woman, the man, the servants, and the horses. but we shall leave the valley, walking together. let the horses go, and the man and the woman and the servants; but we shall go forth together and find the world beyond the mountains."
and with his hand tangled in the mane of the stallion, he walked down the road, away from the hill, the house, the lake. he would not look back, for the house on the hill seemed to him a tomb, the monument of the four dead men who had made this little kingdom.
by the time he reached the gate the garden of eden was awash with the shadows of the evening, but the higher mountain-tops before him were still rosy with the sunset. he paused at the gate and looked out on them, and when he turned to glani again, he saw a figure crouched against the base of the rock wall. it was ruth, weeping, her head fallen into her hands with weariness. above her stood glani, his head turned to the master in almost human inquiry. the deep cry of david wakened her. the gentle hands of david raised her to her feet.
"you have not come to drive me away again?"
"to drive you from the garden? look back. it is black. it is full of death, and the world and our life is before us. i have been a king in the garden. it is better to be a man among men. all the garden was mine. now my hands are empty. i bring you nothing, ruth. is it enough? ah, my dear, you are weeping!"
"with happiness. my heart is breaking with happiness, david."
he tipped up her face and held it between his hands. whatever he saw in the darkness that was gathering it was enough to make him sigh. then he raised her to the back of glani, and the stallion, which had never borne a weight except that of david, stood like a stone. so david went up the valley holding the hand of ruth and looking up to her with laughter in his eyes, and she, with one hand pressed against her breast, laughed back to him, and the great stallion went with his head turned to watch them.
"how wonderful are the ways of god!" said david. "through a thief he has taught me wisdom; through a horse he has taught me faith; and you, oh, my love, are the key with which he has unlocked my heart!"
and they began to climb the mountain.
