With her tears the madness slowly left her, the old
determination came back again and at last the old sad peace. The
sunlight was slanting at a low angle when she rose to her feet and
stood on the cliff overlooking the valley--her lips parted as when
she stood there first, and the tiny drops drying along the roots
of her dull gold hair. And being there for the last time she
thought of that time when she was first there--ages ago. The great
glare of light that she looked for then had come and gone. There
was the smoking monster rushing into the valley and sending
echoing shrieks through the hills--but there was no booted
stranger and no horse issuing from the covert of maple where the
path disappeared. A long time she stood there, with a wandering
look of farewell to every familiar thing before her, but not a
tear came now. Only as she turned away at last her breast heaved
and fell with one long breath--that was all. Passing the Pine
slowly, she stopped and turned back to it, unclasping the necklace
from her throat. With trembling fingers she detached from it the
little luck-piece that Hale had given her--the tear of a fairy
that had turned into a tiny cross of stone when a strange
messenger brought to the Virginia valley the story of the
crucifixion.
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