“I must go in haste; and I have but one thing to do.  We have spoken, Cynthia and I, of the love you have long borne her; and she is yours now, to comfort and lead you as she has led and comforted me.  This is the last sacrifice of love, to give up love itself; and this I do very willingly for the sake of Him that loves us:  and here,” I said, “is a strange thing, that at the very crown and summit of life, for I am sure that this is so, we should be three hearts, so full of love, and yet so sorrowing and suffering as we are.  Is pain indeed the end of all?”

“No,” said Cynthia, “it is not the end, and yet only by it can we measure the depth and height of love.  If we look into our hearts, we know that in spite of all we are more than rewarded, and more than conquerors.”

Then I took Cynthia’s hand and laid it in the hand of Lucius; and I left them there upon the peak, and turned no more.  And no more woeful spirit was in the land of heaven that day than mine as I stumbled wearily down the slope, and found the valley.  And then, for I did not know the way to descend, I commended myself to God; and He took me.

XXXVI

I saw that I was standing in a narrow muddy road, with deep ruts, which led up from the bank of a wide river—­a tidal river, as I could see, from the great mudflats fringed with seaweed.  The sun blazed down upon the whole scene.  Just below was a sort of landing-place, where lay a number of long, low boats, shaded with mats curved like the hood of a waggon; a little farther out was a big quaint ship, with a high stern and yellow sails.  Beyond the river rose great hills, thickly clothed with vegetation.  In front of me, along the roadside, stood a number of mud-walled huts, thatched with some sort of reeds; beyond these, on the left, was the entrance of a larger house, surrounded with high walls, the tops of trees, with a strange red foliage, appearing over the enclosure, and the tiled roofs of buildings.  Farther still were the walls of a great town, huge earthworks crowned with plastered fortifications, and a gate, with a curious roof to it, running out at each end into horns carved of wood.  At some distance, out of a grove to the right, rose a round tapering tower of mouldering brickwork.  The rest of the nearer country seemed laid out in low plantations of some green-leaved shrub, with rice-fields interspersed in the more level ground.

There were only a few people in sight.  Some men with arms and legs bare, and big hats made of reeds, were carrying up goods from the landing-place, and a number of children, pale and small-eyed, dirty and half-naked, were playing about by the roadside.  I went a few paces up the road, and stopped beside a house, a little larger than the rest, with a rough verandah by the door.  Here a middle-aged man was seated, plaiting something out of reeds, but evidently listening for sounds within the house, with an air