to the hill there—­clear and white and smooth.  On the hillside the light is burning.  It is only a short half mile, and the way is easy.  In the old house at the end of the street another light is blinking solemnly.  Beneath it Tim is waiting.  He misses me.  He wonders why I am so long.  Soon he will be coming.  Base deserter, truly!  But for once—­this once—­for the white road over the flat and up the hillside leads to the light!

VI

“Why, Mark, but you did give me a start!” cried Luther Warden, laying down his book and hurrying forward to greet me.

It was not surprising that the good man should be taken back, for in all the years we had lived together in the valley this was my first evening visit.  So unusual an occurrence required an explanation, so I said that I just happened to be taking a stroll and dropped in for a minute.  I glanced at Mary to see if she understood my feeble subterfuge, but I met only a frank smile, as though, like her uncle, she believed that I was likely to go hobbling about on moonlight nights this way.  Luther never doubted me.

“It’s good of you to drop in,” he said, after he had fixed me in his own comfortable chair and drawn up the settee for himself.  “When I was livin’ alone up here I often used to wish some of you young folks would come in of an evenin’ and keep me company and join me in readin’ the Good Book.  It used to be lonely sometimes, but since I’ve got Mary it ain’t so bad.  But I hope her bein’ here won’t make no difference, and now as you’ve started you’ll come just the same as if I was alone.”

I assured him that I would come just the same.  That made Mary laugh.  She had been sitting in the lamp-lit circle, and now she rocked back into the shade, so, craning my neck, I could just see the dark outline of her face.  She made some commonplace but kindly speech of welcome, and I was about to engage her, seeking to draw her from the shadow, when her uncle suddenly interposed himself between us and took a book from the table.  Drawing the settee closer to the light, he opened the great volume across his knees and adjusted his spectacles.  Throwing back his head and looking at me benignly from under his glasses, he said:  “It’s peculiarly fortunate you come to-night, Mark.  When you knocked I was readin’ aloud to Mary.  We read together every night now, her and me, and most instructin’ we find it.”

I told Luther that it was too much for me to allow him to wear out his eyes reading to me; much as I should enjoy it, I could not hear of it, but I would ask him to let me have the volume when he had finished with it.  It did seem that this should bring Mary into the light again, and that she would support my protests; but calmly and quietly she spoke from the darkness, like a voice from another world, “Go on, Uncle Luther; I want Mr. Hope to hear this.”