And in this light she saw a figure whose face startled her, not Joshua, but another to whom her heart did not incline.

Yet there he stood before the eyes of her soul in all his stately height, surrounded by radiance, and with a solemn gesture he laid his hand on the stones he had piled up.
With quickened breath, she gazed upward to the face, yet she would gladly have closed her eyes and lost her hearing, that she might neither see it nor catch the voices from the tree.

But suddenly the figure vanished, the voices died away, and she appeared to behold in a bright, fiery glow, the first man her virgin lips had kissed, as with uplifted sword, leading the shepherds of her people, he dashed toward an invisible foe.
Swiftly as the going and coming of a flash of lightning, the vision appeared and vanished, yet ere it had wholly disappeared she knew its meaning.
The man whom she called "Joshua" and who seemed fitted in every respect to be the shield and leader of his people, must not be turned aside by love from the lofty duty to which the Most High had summoned him.

None of the people must learn the message he brought, lest it should tempt them to turn aside from the dangerous path they had entered.
Her course was as plain as the vision which had just vanished.

And, as if the Most High desired to show her that she had rightly understood its meaning, Hur's voice was heard near the sycamore--ere she had risen to prepare her lover for the sorrow to which she must condemn herself and him--commanding the multitude flocking from all directions to prepare for the departure.
The way to save him from himself lay before her; but Joshua had not yet ventured to disturb her devotions.
He had been wounded and angered to the inmost depths of his soul by her denial.