East of the Shadows

She walked on again overwhelmed by the difficulty of her position. Unthinkingly--unwittingly--she had, in the pitying impulse of the moment, drawn a fellow-soul back to earth and life. If she had not been there he must have died--so much was certain; and yet---So engrossed had she been in her thoughts that she had paid no heed to the road along which she passed, but now, as she lifted her eyes and gazed round her, this way and that, as if seeking some solution of the problem that confronted her, she found that she had reached the moor.

Before her stretched a wide expanse of earth and sky, lit into splendour by the rays of the sun which was sinking, a ball of fire, into a sea of flame. So calm was the distant water that its unruffled surface mirrored the glory of the sky above it in wonderful tones of scarlet and orange and palest rose. The moor itself, brilliant with bell heather, seemed a magnificent robe clothing the world in regal purple; while across it, winding like a ribbon laid lightly over its richness, ran the road--further and further into the distance until it vanished from sight at the meeting-place of land and water. Philippa gazed entranced--her perplexities forgotten--her whole being stirred--uplifted by the beauty of the scene.

Even as she looked the vision changed. The sun dropped below the horizon, throwing, as it fell, great shafts of light like gleaming spears, up across the splendour to the azure overhead--spears which glittered for a moment, flashing a signal to herald the approach of the dusk which on the instant, as if in response to a command, threw a mysterious veil over the pageant of departing day.

No sound broke the stillness--the very earth was hushed.

Philippa gave a little shiver. It was as if with the waning of the glory something had passed from her spirit, leaving her strangely cold and small--an atom in an immeasurable loneliness.

Instinctively she turned to seek human companionship, as a child might turn to seek its mother's hand in a moment of awe. She searched in vain and could see no living thing, but presently she distinguished far off upon the road a figure which gradually she made out to be that of a woman walking towards her. Half impatient with herself at the relief which the sight afforded her, she watched intently.

The woman came steadily on, glancing neither to left nor right, but with her eyes bent upon the ground; and it was not until she was within a few yards of where the girl was standing that she became aware that she was not alone.