Part 21

In the days which followed, days in which she wrote fully and lovingly to her father, she was again conscious of a new and great tranquillity. She had passed through the fiery furnace of her trial, she had drained the cup of doubt to its dregs, and now she looked calmly into that future that held for her the greatest of all trials, and the most tender of all hopes.

The same thought was with her the day the ship sailed. It had been a day of conflict for Faunce, a day of trial, for he had had to face the publicity and the questions, but he had shown a strength and composure that amazed himself. As he had told Diane, his confession had freed him, he was no man’s slave, he had nothing to fear, and he faced the future with a courage so high that it transformed him. Diane saw it. She stood beside him as the ship, slipping its moorings in the North River, dropped down the bay. It was a day of clouds, and a light fog hung like a veil about the great city, it made the distant streets appear like deep incisions between the towering sky-scrapers, and the crowded battery was lightly touched with mist. Above the gray clouds drifted, below the dark water lapped, but Diane lifted her eyes to the face of her husband. Faunce was calm; he was very pale but his eyes glowed and his lips closed firmly. There was power in the face and conflict and hope.

Suddenly, the gray clouds parted and showed a rift of exquisite blue, like a window in heaven, and a shaft of sunlight shot across the sky, it touched the clouds with gold and it glinted on the towering figure of Liberty bearing aloft her torch to light the world.

In the far distance the mists over the narrows grew soft and luminous as Diane looked into them. She did not look back, she looked forward. Out of that future, out of those clouds and that golden glory, she seemed to see the form of her husband--no longer fallen and defeated, but coming back to her in the semblance that she had dreamed, clothed with powers at once mortal and spiritual, and wearing the laurels of victory.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.