No mere argument could have led the old man to such a concession.  It was love—­love for these strangers that he had cherished within his gates, love for the gloomy man whom he had seen young and then old, love for Ann and Natalie and mammy, with their quiet ways, love for the very way of life of all of them—­a way distantly above anything he had ever dreamed before their coming, that drove him, almost against his will, to speed their parting.  He sent for money.  He himself spent long, wistful hours preparing the ox-wagon, the litter, and the horses that were to bear them away.

Then one night the Reverend Orme slept and awoke no more.  In the morning Natalie went into the room and found her mother sitting very still beside the bed, one of the Reverend Orme’s hands in both of hers.  Tears followed each other slowly down her cheeks.  She did not brush them away.

“Mother!” cried Natalie, in the first grip of premonition.

“Hush, dear!” said Mrs. Leighton.  “He is gone.”

They buried him at the very top of the valley, where the eye, guided by the parallel hills, sought ever and again the great mountain thirty miles away.  In that clear air the distant mountain seemed very near.  There were those who said they could see the holy cross upon its brow.

That night Mrs. Leighton and mammy sat idle and staring in the house.  Suddenly they had realized that for them the years of tears had passed.  They looked at each other and wondered by what long road calm had come to them.  Not so Natalie.  Natalie was out in the night, out upon the hills.

She climbed the highest of them all.  As she stumbled up the rise, she lifted her eyes to the stars.  The stars were very high, very far, very cold.  They struck at her sight like needles.

Natalie covered her eyes.  She stood on the crest of the hill.  Her glorious hair had fallen and wrapped her with its still mantle.  Her slight breast was heaving.  She could hear her struggling heart pounding at its cage.  She drew a long breath.  With all the strength:  of her young lungs she called:  “Lew, where are you?  O, Lew, you must come!  O, Lew, I need you!”

The low hills gave back no echo.  It was not silence that swallowed her desperate cry, but distance, overwhelming distance.  She stared wide-eyed across the plain.  Suddenly faith left her.  She knew that Lewis, could not hear.  She knew that she was alone.  She crumpled into a little heap on the top of the highest hill, buried her face in her soft hair, and sobbed.

The conviction that their wilderness held Lewis no longer brought a certain strength to Natalie’s sudden womanhood.  It was as though Fate had cried to her, “The burden is all thine; take it up,” and with the same breath had given her the sure courage that comes with renunciation.  She answered Dom Francisco’s wistful questioning before it could take shape in words.

“We cannot stay,” she said.  “We must go.  You will still help us to go.”