Bickersteth saw that the travail and strife had drained life and energy,
and that he must not press the mind and vitality of this exile of time
and the unknown too far. He felt that when the next test came the old man
would either break completely, and sink down into another and everlasting
forgetfulness, or tear away forever the veil between himself and his
past, and emerge into a long-lost life. His strength must be shepherded,
and he must be kept quiet and undisturbed until they came to the town
yonder in the valley, over which the night was slowly settling down.
There two women waited, the two Alices, from both of whom had gone lovers
into the North. The daughter was living over again in her young love the
pangs of suspense through which her mother had passed. Two years since
Bickersteth had gone, and not a sign!
Yet, if the girl had looked from her bedroom window, this Friday night,
she would have seen on the far hill a sign; for there burned a fire
beside which sat two travellers who had come from the uttermost limits of
snow. But as the fire burned--a beacon to her heart if she had but known
it--she went to her bed, the words of a song she had sung at
choir--practice with tears in her voice and in her heart ringing in her
ears.
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