Only one figure, but all at once it was as though the whole world were before
him!
Coming slowly toward him out of the soft twilight, with eyes downcast and
hands folded nun-like before her, the daughter of Frode did not look out of
place amid blue wreaths of incense and starry altar tapers. Even her robes
were in keeping, gold-weighted as they were, for hood and gown and
fur-bordered mantle were of the deepest heliotrope, that color which bears the
majesty of sorrow while yet it holds within it the rose-tint of gladness.
Beneath its tender shadow the dusk of her hair became deeper, and her face,
robbed by winter of its brownness, took on the delicacy of a cameo. Ah, what a
face it was now, since pain had deepened its sweetness and patience had
purified its ardor! The radiance of a newly-wakened soul was like a halo
around it.
Standing there gazing at her, a wonderful change came over the Lord of
Ivarsdale. Neither then nor ever after could he understand how it happened,
but, all at once, the barrier that circumstances had raised against her fell
like the city walls before the trumpet blast, until not one stone was left
standing upon another. Without knowing how or why,--looking at her, he
believed in her; and his manner, which a moment before had been constrained
and hesitating, became easeful with perfect confidence.
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