After leaving Walda, Stephen Everett walked far out into the country. At
first he did not try to analyze his thoughts. He felt an unwonted
buoyancy and hope. Between him and the brilliant sky he saw the face of
the future prophetess of Zanah. He felt her sweet presence, and
gradually he came into a knowledge that the girl was gaining a mastering
power over him. Because he was more or less of a trifler in the great
world of action, he had been willing to stay in the colony long enough
to gain some new impressions. At first the girl had been only a central
figure in a quaint picture that seemed to belong to another time and to
another country. There had been days that had bored him, and a hundred
times he had repented of his rash pledge that held him in Zanah for an
indefinite period. Now he knew that Walda Kellar had become to him more
than a passing acquaintance. As he hastened away from the village, his
first exultation in having gained from her something of a personal
recognition led him to think of his own motives in attempting to win
what he called the friendship of this woman of Zanah.
Beneath all his aimlessness and indifference, Everett held high ideals
of womanhood. He was a man who cherished chivalrous traditions, and when
his footsteps finally brought him back from the foot of the bluff to the
edge of the little lake, that now reflected a purple sky, he threw
himself upon the ground to think seriously of his intentions. It was
plain to him that the prophetess of Zanah never could belong wholly to
his world. The memory of his associations in New York and Newport made
him almost doubt his own identity. Visions of the fashionable and
frivolous women who were part of what is known as American society
presented themselves to him. He saw the gorgeous gowns and flashing
jewels of matrons and maids whom he knew. He recalled their rather
brilliant conversation. In his mind’s eye he pictured an autumn ball at
Tuxedo—he had just received a letter mentioning a great entertainment
that was to take place that very evening—and he tried to imagine how
Walda Kellar would appear as one of those whom the colony condemned.
There were girls belonging to the gayest circles of Eastern cities who
were pleased to call him friend, and yet he valued their favors as
nothing compared with the esteem that he coveted from the woman of
Zanah. In thinking of Walda he soothed his conscience by telling himself
that esteem was the word which described the interest he wished the girl
to feel for him. And then the thought came to him, insistently, that he
was playing the part of a contemptible egotist, and that he was secretly
longing to awaken in the heart of the prophetess of Zanah earthly love
that was forbidden to her.
It is a human trait to desire what is beyond one’s reach, and Everett
acknowledged to himself that part of the charm which the girl of the
colony cast upon him was due to her elusiveness and to her ignorance of
all that pertained to what were the every-day experiences of ordinary
women. She was the one woman that he might claim unsullied and untouched
by love for any other man, and yet with a sudden sensation of shame he
realized that he was presumptuous to feel himself entitled to a love
that would, indeed, be sent from heaven.
Everett took from his pocket some of the letters that he had received
during the week. All of them told of events that formerly had interested
him. The letters took him back to his own place in the broad life of
America. He reasoned with himself that he might leave Zanah within a
week. He would go away without striving further to probe the mysterious
nature of the prophetess of Zanah, and he would remember his sojourn in
the colony as one of the many pleasant incidents in his varied life.
Having settled the question to his own satisfaction, he experienced a
sensation of relief. He strolled back to the village. Entering the inn,
he found Diedrich Werther smoking a pipe behind the dog-eared register,
which had not recorded a name since his own had been written there. He
asked some questions about the hunting, and the innkeeper told him of a
distant pond where ducks were plentiful. Everett announced that he meant
to take his gun out early the next morning, and he asked whether Hans
Peter might accompany him. Incidentally he dropped the remark that he
expected to leave the colony within a few days. Then he borrowed the
old-fashioned ink-horn and a quill-pen, which he took to one of the
tables in a far corner of the main room of the inn. Selecting a dozen
sheets of yellow paper from Diedrich Werther’s store of stationery, he
began to write letters to the friends he had almost forgotten for a
fortnight.
There was a woman in Newport to whom he had meant to send a note. He
thought of her amusement when she would receive a sample of Diedrich
Werther’s yellow stationery. He wrote the date line, and then he found
it difficult to frame a graceful and conventional greeting to one whom
he had quite forgotten for many days. He leaned back in his chair and
tried to imagine how this woman and Walda would appear if he saw them
together. The one was a typical product of American civilization, that
educates its women broadly, giving them the liberty to mingle freely
with the greatest of many lands—a woman born to wealth and station, one
who knew how to value her extraordinary advantages, and how to make the
most of them. She was still young, but she had learned much of the
world, for she had travelled widely and had read books of every class.
She had few illusions. He remembered that her broad grasp of life had
sometimes shocked him. She had studied much of philosophy, and had but
desultory connection with a fashionable church. She was witty,
brilliant, fascinating. She was an aristocrat, in the best sense of the
word. Her gowns were artistic masterpieces. A picture of her as he had
seen her at an Easter ball came back to him. He recalled the shimmering
satin and the frost of lace that set off her imperious beauty. That
night he had been almost persuaded that she was the one woman in the
world. For a moment he quite forgot Zanah. He was impatient to go back
to the gay world that held so much of beauty and brightness. It was a
strange vagary, this sojourn in the colony. He dipped the quill-pen into
the ink-horn again. He drew the ugly sheet of yellow paper towards him,
and then he heard the heavy step of Mother Werther as she hastened
across the great kitchen to the porch.
“Walda, where art thou going?” she said.
Before he knew what he was doing, Everett had dropped his pen and
sauntered out-of-doors into the little square where Walda had paused at
the well. She was giving a cup of water to a child, and at first she did
not see Everett. She was standing so that he could see only her profile,
and its purity of outline made him say to himself that he had never
beheld a face so clear-cut. The delicate line of the lips, which were
always firmly closed, denoted a strength of character that the chin
rather contradicted in its full curve. He went to her, and, taking the
cup from her hand, hung it in its accustomed place.
“I am glad to have met you, Walda,” he said, with a little hesitation as
he spoke her name, “for I am thinking of going away this week—”
The girl gave him a startled look.
“Nay, tell me not that, Stephen Everett,” she answered. “Truly, thou
dost not mean thou wilt leave Zanah before the _Untersuchung_?”
“Surely, you do not care whether I go or stay?” he said.
The prophetess of Zanah knew no arts of coquetry. She did not understand
the significance of his words, and she looked into his face with clear,
untroubled eyes.
“Ah, but I do care,” she exclaimed. “My father needs thee yet; he is not
so strong to-day.”
She turned away from the well and began to walk towards the bridge.
Everett followed her.
“Your father will get on without me,” he declared, with some coldness,
for the girl’s unconscious rebuff irritated him.
“Nay, thou seemest to hold the power which keepeth him alive. I mean,
that although it is the Lord that hath vouchsafed to spare him, thou art
his instrument. My faith is not steadfast. I am weak, indeed; but thou
hast seemed to me a stay, a strong staff upon which I lean.”
“It is good to know that you count me even a little help.” An intonation
in his voice told her that he felt himself aggrieved.
“Thou must count me a selfish woman of Zanah,” she made haste to say.
“Thou hast stayed many days here in the colony, and neglected thine own
work that thou mightst minister to my father.”
“I have but kept my pledge to you.”
“Thou hast my gratitude, Stephen.” She paused on the bridge. “I cannot
estimate what sacrifice thou hast made to keep thy word, but thou hast
caused me to know that all who belong to the great world are not wicked.
Verily, Stephen, thou dost serve the Lord.”
Everett did not reply immediately. He had a guilty sense of misleading
the prophetess of Zanah. He knew that of all his life but the smallest
fragments had been given to service of any sort. A sense of regret for
the futile years he had spent made him turn away, for the girl was
looking at him with a searching gaze that made him uncomfortable.
“The darkness is falling; I must hasten on,” said Walda, but she did not
move.
“Where were you going?” asked Everett. “Let me walk with you?”
“It is not the custom for the men of Zanah to talk with the women, or to
walk with them,” said Walda. “It hath been decreed by the elders that I
shall go alone at this hour every night to pray at the grave of Marta
Bachmann.”
“I am not a man of Zanah. The cemetery is half a mile from here, along a
lonely road. Let me go with you?” he pleaded, and, without waiting for
an answer, he took her permission for granted. It was the hour for the
evening meeting, and the street was quite deserted, so he knew that they
ran little risk of being seen together in the dusk of the late summer
day.
They walked slowly up the hill beyond the bridge. They passed the
school-house, and Walda paused to look up at the little window of her
father’s room, whence shone a candle-beam.
“When I think that through thy help I still have my father, there is so
much of gratitude in my heart that I cannot speak it,” she said.
“Surely, it will not be long before he is again able to mingle with the
colony?”
“Not very long, if all goes well,” said Everett. “I hear that he is much
needed by the elders of Zanah.”
“Bad luck hath come to the mills and the crops. I fear that we have not
looked steadfastly to the Lord for guidance. I pray that it may be
revealed through me what we shall do to increase the prosperity of
Zanah.”
They were on the brow of the hill now, and had entered the wavering
road, arched with oak and maple trees. Everett was silent for a few
minutes while he pondered upon some method by which he could lead the
conversation away from general topics. While the girl betrayed no
uneasiness in his companionship, he knew that he must use the utmost
tact if he would appeal to the woman instead of the prophetess.
“And when you are inspired, will you live apart from the people of
Zanah?” he said. “You will pardon me, but I have often wondered just
what your life will be. Are you never to know the duties and the joys
that belong to other women?”
“I am to walk close to God. I am to forget self. I am to serve Zanah all
my life.”
Walda spoke in a solemn tone, and her absolute resignation to the lot
that appeared to the man of the world a needless and ridiculous
sacrifice awoke a spirit of revolt in Everett’s heart.
“Temptations have assailed me,” she confessed, after a pause. “Now and
then there hath been a restlessness within me. Thou hast sometimes
appeared to me as one sent from Satan, for thou hast painted the great
world most alluringly.”
Walda drew away from Everett, and he could feel that she was looking at
him with fear and distrust.
“You misunderstand me,” said Everett. “I know that you live near to
heaven, that you are better than the women I know. I reverence you,
I—I—”
Although Everett made an effort to speak calmly, the intensity of his
voice and manner disturbed the unfathomed depths of Walda’s soul. After
the manner of Zanah she instinctively folded her hands over her bosom
with a gesture that signified to the colonists the warding off of all
worldly influences.
“Hush!” she said. “Speak not thus to the prophetess of Zanah.”
“I am not speaking to the prophetess now,” said Everett, taking a quick
step in front of her. “Walda, listen to me. Don’t you know that you are
choosing for your life loneliness and isolation? I think of you here in
Zanah in the years that are coming, and I cannot bear to feel that one
day will be just like another until the end.”
“A man thou art who hath set his thoughts on earth. Stephen, dost thou
not know sorrow and trouble cannot touch me when I walk near to God?
Hast thy spirit never been lifted up above all that belongs to self?
Hast thou never been near to heaven in thy thoughts?”
“Never until now,” said Everett.
Into Walda’s face came a new light.
“Dost thou mean that thou hast learned in Zanah to think less of the
world and to long for heaven?”
The man looked down at the girl. She was so near him that the light
breeze blew her gown against him. He stifled a longing to put out his
hand to touch her.
“Yes, Walda, I can say with all truthfulness that the world has become
as nothing to me, and that I long for heaven.”
“Thou hast made me very happy, Stephen. It hath been a sorrow to me to
know that thou wert not numbered with those who strive to earn eternal
life.”
“Then you have been troubled about me?” Everett questioned.
The girl hesitated a moment.
“I have hoped that I might meet thee in the other life, where there are
none of the barriers that divide men and women who would serve the
Lord.”
Everett felt the blood pour out of his heart. The girl had made a
strange admission. For a brief moment he was glad with all the joy of an
unexpected victory. Exultant words came to his lips, but when he looked
at Walda he felt anew the awe that her innocence and her spirituality
cast upon him. She appeared absolutely unconscious of what her admission
meant to the man of the world. She moved onward. They emerged from the
wooded road and came to the shore of the placid little lake. The distant
bluffs beyond the lake were dimly outlined in the evening shadows, and
above them the last lingering purple of the sunset was fading in the
sky. In the trees behind them a bird trilled the fragment of a
dream-song. The beauty of the scene, the quiet of the night, and the
nearness of Walda stirred in Everett warring impulses, yet he was dumb
before the prophetess of Zanah. The girl’s attitude of perfect trust in
him forbade him to take advantage of the opportunity to tell her that
his heaven was not the one for which she lived and worked, and yet he
felt almost cowardly in letting her believe that his sudden aspiration
was a religious experience.
“Stephen, I would have thee know what is in my heart,” she said, fixing
her clear eyes on him. “I would have thee understand that I am but a
weak woman of Zanah, called to do the Lord’s will. There have been times
when Satan tempted me with longing for the things forever denied to the
people of Zanah. There have been days when I begged that I might not be
compelled to be the prophetess. Often have I prayed to escape this work
of the Master, but since thou camest to Zanah there hath been a new
strength in me. Thou hast made me see many things unto which mine eyes
were closed; thou hast helped me to wisdom not vouchsafed to the colony
of Zanah. Since one day, when thou didst teach me to look from the
window of my father’s room, and behold the beauties of earth and sky,
peace hath come to me from the woods and fields whenever there was
unrest in my soul. Now that thou hast aspirations for heaven, I am
assured that thou art one sent from God to help the least of his
children.”
“I am unworthy to be your teacher,” Everett faltered.
They walked on until they came to the high, arched gate of the
graveyard. Everett unlatched the gate and they went in among the sunken
mounds, each of which was marked by a flat stone bearing the simple name
of some colonist who had passed out of the narrow life of Zanah. On a
little knoll, separated from the other graves, was one over which a
willow-tree trailed its low branches. Towards this Walda led the way,
and when they had come to it she said to Everett:
“Thou must leave me now.”
“I was thinking of going away from Zanah,” said Everett, with a sudden
memory of his letters. “When I took the liberty of walking with you
to-night it was my intention to say good-bye to you, Walda.”
The girl turned on him a glance of such frank regret that he asked
again:
“Will you miss me, Walda?”
“Miss thee?” she repeated. “Yea, for I have come to count thee as one
who maketh each day better for me. Thou hast become like unto Gerson
Brandt in thy brotherly care.”
Everett winced.
“But I don’t want you to think of me as your brother,” he said. “I would
have you call me friend.”
“Nay, friendship is denied between men and women in Zanah. Have I not
told thee that before? But surely thou wilt not go away before the
_Untersuchung_?”
There was a tone of pleading in the girl’s voice.
“Since I have to leave Zanah, since I have to go out into the world,
where I shall be lost to you, I may as well go now as at any future
time.”
“Nay, wait in Zanah until after the spirit of strength hath taken
possession of me. When I am, indeed, the instrument of the Lord, then
can I see thee turn again to the world. Then can I know, indeed, it will
be well with me. Stephen, thou hast just said thou art near to heaven,
and I would send thee forth with a firm faith. From now until the day of
the _Untersuchung_ I will pray for thee.”
“Your wishes shall be commands to me, Walda. But if I decide to stay in
Zanah, it will mean much to me. There may be days when I shall repent
that I changed my mind.” He stood looking at her for a moment. “I will
pledge myself to wait in Zanah until the day on which the colonists
expect to recognize you as their prophetess.”
“Thou hast made me glad, Stephen. Since it is for thy good to stay here,
I can no longer feel that I am selfish.”
“Inasmuch as you have accepted my pledge, you must let me take your hand
as a token of my promise,” said Everett. In the intensity of his longing
there was such a compelling force that Walda made no objection when,
without waiting for her permission, he took both her hands in his, and
held them for a moment. A deep flush suffused her pure face, and for the
first time in all their acquaintance her eyes refused to meet his. Her
hands trembled, and with a sudden awakening to something of the
consciousness that first comes to every woman who is loved, she suddenly
freed herself.
“Peace be with thee to-night, Stephen,” she said. She turned quickly,
and took a few slow steps towards the grave of Marta Bachmann. Everett,
looking after her, beheld a strange shape rise above the tomb. He strode
forward to see what it might be, and in the dim light recognized Hans
Peter.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, in a stern voice.
The fool leisurely seated himself upon the flat stone and answered:
“The simple one doth not have to account to any man concerning himself.
The fool can do no harm. It is the man from the wicked world that should
be under watch among the people of Zanah.”
Hans Peter swung his short legs over the edge of the gravestone; and if
his words had a sinister meaning, his round, immobile face betrayed not
the slightest expression of intelligence. He took from his pocket one of
his treasured gourds, calmly opened his knife, and made a few marks.
“Hans Peter, thou shouldst remember to treat the stranger within our
gates with respect,” said Walda, reprovingly; but the fool seemed not to
hear her.
Everett lingered beside the girl, as if he could not summon courage to
go away.
“Leave me here alone,” Walda commanded, gently. “Hans Peter will take me
back to the village.”
As Everett latched the gate to the cemetery he looked back to see Walda
kneeling at the grave, while Hans Peter, who had withdrawn to a little
distance, lay flat upon a sunken stone.