_The Picture in the Sky_ If something of the peace of the night-silence came to him as he rode, he counted it only the peace of surrender and despair.

He knew now that he had been cheated of all his great long-nursed hopes of some superior exaltation.

Nor this only; for he had sinned unforgivably and incurred perdition.

He who had fasted, prayed, and endured, waiting for his Witness, for the spreading of the heavens and the glory of the open vision, had overreached himself and was cast down.
When at last he slowed his horse to a walk, it was the spring of the day.

The moon had gone, and over on his left a soft grayness began to show above the line of the hills.