Although Everett made an effort to speak calmly, the intensity of his voice and manner disturbed the unfathomed depths of Walda’s soul. After the manner of Zanah she instinctively folded her hands over her bosom with a gesture that signified to the colonists the warding off of all worldly influences. “Hush!” she said. “Speak not thus to the prophetess of Zanah.” “I am not speaking to the prophetess now,” said Everett, taking a quick step in front of her. “Walda, listen to me. Don’t you know that you are choosing for your life loneliness and isolation? I think of you here in Zanah in the years that are coming, and I cannot bear to feel that one day will be just like another until the end.” “A man thou art who hath set his thoughts on earth. Stephen, dost thou not know sorrow and trouble cannot touch me when I walk near to God? Hast thy spirit never been lifted up above all that belongs to self? Hast thou never been near to heaven in thy thoughts?” “Never until now,” said Everett. Into Walda’s face came a new light. “Dost thou mean that thou hast learned in Zanah to think less of the world and to long for heaven?” The man looked down at the girl. She was so near him that the light breeze blew her gown against him. He stifled a longing to put out his hand to touch her. “Yes, Walda, I can say with all truthfulness that the world has become as nothing to me, and that I long for heaven.” “Thou hast made me very happy, Stephen. It hath been a sorrow to me to know that thou wert not numbered with those who strive to earn eternal life.” “Then you have been troubled about me?” Everett questioned. The girl hesitated a moment. “I have hoped that I might meet thee in the other life, where there are none of the barriers that divide men and women who would serve the Lord.” Everett felt the blood pour out of his heart. The girl had made a strange admission. For a brief moment he was glad with all the joy of an unexpected victory. Exultant words came to his lips, but when he looked at Walda he felt anew the awe that her innocence and her spirituality cast upon him. She appeared absolutely unconscious of what her admission meant to the man of the world. She moved onward. They emerged from the wooded road and came to the shore of the placid little lake. The distant bluffs beyond the lake were dimly outlined in the evening shadows, and above them the last lingering purple of the sunset was fading in the sky. In the trees behind them a bird trilled the fragment of a dream-song. The beauty of the scene, the quiet of the night, and the nearness of Walda stirred in Everett warring impulses, yet he was dumb before the prophetess of Zanah. The girl’s attitude of perfect trust in him forbade him to take advantage of the opportunity to tell her that his heaven was not the one for which she lived and worked, and yet he felt almost cowardly in letting her believe that his sudden aspiration was a religious experience.