The mist closed suddenly in upon the scene, and we were back in a moment in the garden with its porticoes, in the radiant, untroubled air.  Amroth looked at me with a smile that was full, half of gaiety and half of tenderness.  “There,” he said, “what do you think of that?  If all had gone well with me, as they say on earth, that is where I should be now, going down to the city with Charles.  That is the prospect which to the dear old people seems so satisfactory compared with this!  In that house I lay ill for some weeks, and from there my body was carried out.  And they would have kept me there if they could—­and I myself did not want to go.  I was afraid.  Oh, how I envied Charles going down to the city and coming back for tea, to read the magazines aloud or play backgammon.  I am afraid I was not as nice as I should have been about all that—­the evenings were certainly dull!”

“But what do you feel about it now?” I said.  “Don’t you feel sorry for the muddle and ignorance and pathos of it all?  Can’t something be done to show everybody what a ghastly mistake it is, to get so tied down to the earth and the things of earth?”

“A mistake?” said Amroth.  “There is no such thing as a mistake.  One cannot sorrow for their grief, any more than one can sorrow for the child who cries out in the tunnel and clasps his mother’s hand.  Don’t you see that their grief and loss is the one beautiful thing in those lives, and all that it is doing for them, drawing them hither?  Why, that is where we grow and become strong, in the hopeless suffering of love.  I am glad and content that my own stay was made so brief.  I wish it could be shortened for the three—­and yet I do not, because they will gain so wonderfully by it.  They are mounting fast; it is their very ignorance that teaches them.  Not to know, not to perceive, but to be forced to believe in love, that is the point.”

“Yes,” I said, “I see that; but what about the lives that are broken and poisoned by grief, in a stupor of pain—­or the souls that do not feel it at all, except as a passing shadow—­what about them?”

“Oh,” said Amroth lightly, “the sadder the dream the more blessed the awakening; and as for those who cannot feel—­well, it will all come to them, as they grow older.”

“Yes,” I said, “it has done me good to see all this—­it makes many things plain; but can you bear to leave them thus?”

“Leave them!” said Amroth.  “Who knows but that I shall be sent to help them away, and carry them, as I carried you, to the crystal sea of peace?  The darling mother, I shall be there at her awakening.  They are old spirits, those two, old and wise; and there is a high place prepared for them.”

“But what about Charles?” I said.

Amroth smiled.  “Old Charles?” he said.  “I must admit that he is not a very stirring figure at present.  He is much immersed in his game of finance, and talks a great deal in his lighter moments about the commercial prospects of the Empire and the need of retaliatory tariffs.  But he will outgrow all that!  He is a very loyal soul, but not very adventurous just now.  He would be sadly discomposed by an affection which came in between him and his figures.  He would think he wanted a change—­and he will have a thorough one, the good old fellow, one of these days.  But he has a long journey before him.”