The Broad Highway

Night, with a rising moon, and over all things a great quietude, a deep, deep silence. Air, close and heavy, without a breath to wake the slumbering trees; an oppressive stillness, in which small sounds magnified themselves, and seemed disproportionately loud.

And presently, as I went upon my way, I forgot the old man sleeping so peacefully with the rusty staple clasped to his shrunken breast, and thought only of the proud woman who had given her life into my keeping, and who, henceforth, would walk with me, hand in hand, upon this Broad Highway, over rough places, and smooth -- even unto the end. So I strode on, full of a deep and abiding joy, and with heart that throbbed and hands that trembled because I knew that she watched and waited for my coming.