. . . . . . . . . . . . 492
"ROUGHSEDGE STOOD NEAR, RELUCTANTLY WAITING". . . . . . . . . . . . . 514
Part I
_"Action is transitory--a step, a blow,
The motion of a muscle--this way or that--
'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed:
Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark,
And shares the nature of infinity_."
--THE BORDERERS.
The Testing of Diana Mallory
CHAPTER I
The clock in the tower of the village church had just struck the
quarter. In the southeast a pale dawn light was beginning to show above
the curving hollow of the down wherein the village lay enfolded; but the
face of the down itself was still in darkness. Farther to the south, in
a stretch of clear night sky hardly touched by the mounting dawn, Venus
shone enthroned, so large and brilliant, so near to earth and the
spectator, that she held, she pervaded the whole dusky scene, the
shadowed fields and wintry woods, as though she were their very soul
and voice.
"The Star of Bethlehem!--and Christmas Day!"
Diana Mallory had just drawn back the curtain of her bedroom.
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