destroying homes.  It is but the burning of the weeds of life; and it is as needful as the sunshine and the rain.  Pain does not wander aimlessly, smiting down by mischance and by accident; it comes as the close and dear intention of the Father’s heart, and is to a man as a trumpet-call from the land of life, not as a knell from the land of death.  And now, dear children, you must leave me, for I have much to do.  And I will give you,” he added, turning to me, “a gift which shall be your comfort, and a token that you have been here, and seen the worst and the best that there is to see.”

He drew from under his cloak a ring, a circlet of gold holding a red stone with a flaming heart, and put it on my finger.  There pierced through me a pang intenser than any I had ever experienced, in which all the love and sorrow I had ever known seemed to be suddenly mingled, and which left behind it a perfect and intense sense of joy.

“There, that is my gift,” he said, “and you shall have an old man’s loving blessing too, for it is that, after all, that I live for.”  He drew me to him and kissed me on the brow, and in a moment he was gone.

We walked away in silence, and for my part with an elation of spirit which I could hardly control, a desire to love and suffer, and do and be all that the mind of man could conceive.  But my heart was too full to speak.

“Come,” said Amroth presently, “you are not as grateful as I had hoped—­you are outgrowing me!  Come down to my poor level for an instant, and beware of spiritual pride!” Then altering his tone he said, “Ah, yes, dear friend, I understand.  There is nothing in the world like it, and you were most graciously and tenderly received—­but the end is not yet.”

“Amroth,” I said, “I am like one intoxicated with joy.  I feel that I could endure anything and never make question of anything again.  How infinitely good he was to me—­like a dear father!”

“Yes,” said Amroth, “he is very like the Father “—­and he smiled at me a mysterious smile.

“Amroth,” I said, bewildered, “you cannot mean—?”

“No, I mean nothing,” said Amroth, “but you have to-day looked very far into the truth, farther than is given to many so soon; but you are a child of fortune, and seem to please every one.  I declare that a little more would make me jealous.”

Presently, catching sight of one of the enclosures hard by, I said to Amroth, “But there are some questions I must ask.  What has just happened had put it mostly out of my head.  Those poor suffering souls that we saw just now—­it is well, with them, I am sure, so near the Master of the Tower—­he does not forget them, I am sure—­but who are they, and what have they done to suffer so?”

“I will tell you,” said Amroth, “for it is a dark business.  Those two that you have seen—­well, you will know one of them by name and fame, and of the other you may have heard.  The first, that old shaggy-haired man, who lay upon the stones, that was ——­”