“Of course they are not,” Everett said, and he laughed aloud in the joy the knowledge of her love gave him. “Look up, Walda, and let me kiss you again, and you will learn that the kiss of love is the token that unlocks the hearts of men and women.” She looked into his eyes, and their lips met. “Thou speakest truly, Stephen,” Walda said. “Let us go back to the village. I would think of thee and of love in solitude and with much prayer. This hour hath robbed me of the mantle of the prophetess.” “But it has given you the highest heritage of life. It is better to be a wife than a prophetess, Walda.” XVII Kneeling by the window in her bare little room, Walda tried to pray after the manner of Zanah, yet no words of penitence came to the lips that had been touched by a lover’s kiss. The soul that the good elders had turned towards heaven as a mirror upon which the divine will might be reflected held an earthly image. A human love was enshrined in the heart that had been consecrated to God. As the girl prostrated herself, the discipline of long years of religious training was forgotten. Her Zanah life fell from her. New emotions swept over her, submerging her old character and bringing strange, sweet hopes. The soul of the priestess was consumed by the supreme passion of earth, and in its place flamed the soul of a woman. One by one the lowly duties that had occupied her days came up before her. She recalled the pious fervor that had made them pleasant. Looking back to the time when Everett’s chance words in the sick-room had tempted her to enjoy the beauties of sky and field, she realized how far she had grown away from her former self since the almost imperceptible beginning of the fuller life which she had unconsciously entered. Kneeling there in the darkness, for the first time in all her life she rebelled against the laws of Zanah. Her youth and womanhood demanded the privilege of accepting human love. Everett’s influence was over her, and she gave little thought to the future. It was enough to feel the exaltation of love, to comprehend that she stood at the threshold of the ultimate mystery of life. She looked out at the stars that shone above the far horizon. She felt that she had ceased to belong to Zanah. It was as if she had entered into a larger kinship with all nature. Love had wrought the miracle that puts away all one’s years and leads the soul into a new existence independent of the past, expectant of the future.