Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/287

 on his face. He looked at the valley coming into sight through the mists. He was so close to me I could have tossed a stone to him—I shall never know how long he stood there—how long I had that face before me."

The narrator was silent. Madame Orloff opened her eyes and looked at him piercingly.

"I cannot tell you—I cannot!" he answered her. "Who can tell of life and death and a new birth? It was as though I were thinking with my finger-nails, or the hair of my head—a part of me I had never before dreamed had feeling. My eyes were dazzled. I could have bowed myself to the earth like Moses before the burning bush. How can I tell you? How can I tell you?"

"He was?" breathed the woman.

"Hubert van Eyck might have painted God the Father with those eyes—that mouth—that face of patient power—of selfless, still beatitude.—Once the dog, nestling by his side, whimpered and licked his hand. He looked down, he turned his eyes away from his vision, and looked down at the animal and smiled. Jehovah! What a smile. It seemed to me then that if God loves humanity, he can have no kinder smile for us. And then he looked back across the valley—at the sky, at the mountains, at the smoke rising from the houses below us—he looked at the world—at some vision, some knowledge—what he saw what he saw! "I did not know when he went. I was alone in that crimson wood.

"I went back to the village. I went back to the city. I would not speak to him till I had some honor worthy