" He remembered the December afternoon
so many years ago, when she had run away from the school in Applegate,
and he had found her breasting a heavy snow storm on the road to
Jordan's Journey. Against the darkness he saw her so vividly, as she
looked with the snow powdering her hair and her eyes shining happily up
at him when she nestled for warmth against his arm, that for a minute he
could hardly believe that it was eight years ago and not yesterday.
Several weeks later, on a hazy October morning, when the air was sharp
with the scent of cider presses and burning brushwood, he met Molly
returning from the cross-roads, in the short path over the pasture.
"I thought you had gone," he said, and held out his hand.
"Not yet. Mrs. Gay wants to stay through October."
In her hand she held a bunch of golden-rod, and behind her the field in
which she had gathered it, flamed royally in the sunlight.
"Did you know that I rode to Piping Tree to hear you speak one day in
June?" she asked suddenly.
"I didn't know it, but it was nice of you."
His renunciation had conferred a dignity upon him which had in it
something of the quiet and the breadth of the Southern landscape.
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