She remained not there long, because there were many who sought that place that they might be the first to see if one beloved was among the travellers by that terrible way, and to welcome the brother or sister who was the most dear to them of all the children of the Father.  But it was thus that she learned the last lesson of all that is in heaven and that is in earth, and in the heights above and in the depths below, which the great angels desire to look into, and all the princes and powers.  And it is this:  that there is that which is beyond hope yet not beyond love; and that hope may fail and be no longer possible, but love cannot fail,—­for hope is of men, but love is the Lord; and there is but one thing which to Him is not possible, which is to forget; and that even when the Father has hidden His face and help is forbidden, yet there goes He secretly and cannot forbear.

But if there were any deep more profound, and to which access was not, either from the dark mountains or by any other way, the Pilgrim was not taught, nor ever found any knowledge, either among the angels who know all things, or among her brothers who were the children of men.

III.

The land of darkness.

I found myself standing on my feet, with the tingling sensation of having come down rapidly upon the ground from a height.  There was a similar feeling in my head, as of the whirling and sickening sensation of passing downwards through the air, like the description Dante gives of his descent upon Geryon.  My mind, curiously enough, was sufficiently disengaged to think of that, or at least to allow swift passage for the recollection through my thoughts.  All the aching of wonder, doubt, and fear which I had been conscious of a little while before was gone.  There was no distinct interval between the one condition and the other, nor in my fall (as I supposed it must have been) had I any consciousness of change.  There was the whirling of the air, resisting my passage, yet giving way under me in giddy circles, and then the sharp shock of once more feeling under my feet something solid, which struck, yet sustained.  After a little while the giddiness above and the tingling below passed away, and I felt able to look about me and discern where I was.  But not all at once; the things immediately about me impressed me first, then the general aspect of the new place.

First of all the light, which was lurid, as if a thunder-storm were coming on.  I looked up involuntarily to see if it had begun to rain; but there was nothing of the kind, though what I saw above me was a lowering canopy of cloud, dark, threatening, with a faint reddish tint diffused upon the vaporous darkness.  It was, however, quite sufficiently clear to see everything, and there was a good deal to see.  I was in a street of what seemed a great and very populous place.  There were shops on either side, full apparently of