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and earnest, beautiful and terrible, inexplicable as the blaze of the setting
sun, so fiery golden on the rugged, towering Rim. In the depths of the quiet
woods she could understand something of simplicity. For her and Clara life had
been throbbing and poignant. For the Denmeades life seemed like that of the
trees and denizens of the forest.
The sun sank, the birds ceased their plaintive notes, and a dreaming silence
pervaded the green world of foliage. Late bees hummed by. The drowsy summer
heat began to cool.
Lucy's heart was full of reverent gratitude to whatever had wrought the change
in Clara. Love, suffering, the influence of nature, all had combined to burn
out the baneful, selfish weakness that had made Clara a victim to
circumstances. And these were only other names for God.
How inscrutably had things worked to this happy end! She tried to look
backward and understand. But that seemed impossible. Yet she realised how
stubbornly, miserably, she had clung to her ideal. If she had only known the
reward!
The great solemn forest land was after all to be her home. She would go on
with her work among these simple people, grateful that she would be received
by them, happy that she could bring good to their lonely homes. The thing she
had prayed most for had become a reality. If doubt ever assailed her again, it
would be of short duration. She thought of the bee-hunter She would be his
wife on the morrow!
Dusk mantled the forest. A faint night wind arose, mournful and sweet. Lucy
threaded her way back toward the clearing. And the peace of the wilderness
seemed to have permeated her soul. She was just one little atom in a vast
world of struggling humans, like a little pine sapling lifting itself among
millions of its kind toward the light. But that lifting was the great and the
beautiful secret.
THE END
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