afternoon, by a miracle, the sweetest of miracles, the sense of our
difference left me. I was out--I was near, thinking, wandering
alone, when, on the spot, something changed in my heart. It's my
confession--there it is. To come back, to come back on the
instant--the idea gave me wings. It was as if I suddenly saw
something--as if it all became possible. I could come for what you
yourself came for: that was enough. So here I am. It's not for
my own--that's over. But I'm here for THEM." And breathless,
infinitely relieved by her low precipitate explanation, she looked
with eyes that reflected all its splendour at the magnificence of
their altar.

"They're here for you," Stransom said, "they're present to-night as
they've never been. They speak for you--don't you see?--in a
passion of light; they sing out like a choir of angels. Don't you
hear what they say?--they offer the very thing you asked of me."

"Don't talk of it--don't think of it; forget it!" She spoke in
hushed supplication, and while the alarm deepened in her eyes she
disengaged one of her hands and passed an arm round him to support
him better, to help him to sink into a seat.

He let himself go, resting on her; he dropped upon the bench and
she fell on her knees beside him, his own arm round her shoulder.
So he remained an instant, staring up at his shrine. "They say
there's a gap in the array--they say it's not full, complete. Just
one more," he went on, softly--"isn't that what you wanted? Yes,
one more, one more."

"Ah no more--no more!" she wailed, as with a quick new horror of