Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/248

 mounds, the oblong fields,—the whole horizon began slowly to recede.

Lucy continued thinking of the end. She went to it without remorse, without complaining, without resistance. Nay, a certain weak contentment awoke in her: she calmly considered that she would live as purified in the memory of the people that knew her, that the old lady and all the people who had wronged her so much would think of her, and that Jiří would be torn by remorse for today’s happenings She forgave him, forgave all In a few hours her lot would be: peace, peace!

Proudly she surveyed the landscape: a new scene. The country stretched out before her as though laid on a table. The oblong fields, the meadows, the villages,—everything was clad in colors, and breathed softly in the sunshine The crickets chirped all around her, and in the height above trilled the skylarks, and the swelling