She could not help the sick feeling in her
throat, nor make her hand steady; but the more alone she was, the nearer
He came,--the pale face of the Nazarene, who loved His mother and Mary,
who took the little children in His arms before He blessed them. Nearer
than ever before; so she was not afraid to tell Him, as she went, how
she had suffered that day, and that she loved this man who lay dying
under the snow: to ask that she might find him. A great gulf lay between
them. Would _He_ go with her, if she crossed it? She knew He would.
A strange peace came to the girl. She untied her hood and pushed it
back, that her whole head might feel the still air. How pure it was! God
was in it,--in all. The mountains, the sky, the armies yonder, her own
heart, and his under the snow, rested in Him, like motes in the
sunshine.
The moon, rising behind a bank of cloud, threw patches of light now and
then across the path: the girl's head, as she rode through them, came
into quick relief. No saint's face,--a very woman's, its pale, reserved
beauty unstrung with pain, her bosom full of earthly love, but in her
eyes that look which Mary must have given, when, after she thought her
Lord was dead, He called her, "Mary!" and she, looking up, said,
"Master!"
She had reached the highway at last.
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