This idea, which had never come to me in ten years, seemed now perfectly natural.  I would return at once to that far off village where, for a brief hour, I had dwelt in a “Fool’s Paradise,” through which my way had lain but a brief span, and where I had passed, like the fabled bird, that “floats through Heaven, but cannot light.”

* * * * *

I remember but little of the journey home, save that it was long, and that I slept much.  But whether it was months or years I never knew.  I seemed to be making up what I had lost in ten years.  Time occupied itself in restoring the balance I had taken so much pains to upset.

It was night when I reached the place at last.

I found it as I had left it.  Had a magic sleep settled there it could not have been less changed.

I was recognized in the small bare office of the one tavern.  I felt that my sudden appearance surprised no one.  But I did not wonder why.

Oddly enough, I never asked a question.  I had not even questioned myself as to what I expected to find.  Years afterward I was convinced, in reviewing the matter, that my soul had known from the first.

I dined alone, quite calmly, after which I stepped out into the starlight.  I turned up the hill, and struck into the familiar road I had so often travelled in the old days.  It led toward the river, and along the steep bank of the rapid noisy stream.  The chill wind of an early autumn night moaned sadly in the tall trees, and the dead leaves under my feet rustled a sad accompaniment to my thoughts, which at last, unhooded, flew back to the past.

Below rushed the river, whose torrent had ever been an accompaniment to all my recollections of her—­as inseparable from them as the color of her eyes, or the tones of her voice.

I could not but contrast my present calm with the mad humor in which I had last rushed down the slope I was so quietly climbing.  As I went forward, I began to ask myself, “Why?” I could not answer that, but I began to hurry.

Suddenly I stopped.

The moon had emerged above the trees on the opposite side of the river.  It struck and illumined something white above me.  I was standing exactly where I had stood on that fatal tenth of August, so many years before.

I came to my senses as if by an electric shock.

At last everything was clear to me.  At last I understood whence had gone all my vanity and jealousy.  At last I understood the spell of peace that had settled on me in that moonlit tenth of August, in that far off city.

My burden had passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death with her—­for I was standing at the door of her tomb!

I did not question.  I knew, I comprehended.

In no other way could I have found such calm.

Though I flung myself on the shining marble steps that led in the moonlight up to the top of the knoll where the tomb stood, I had no tears to shed.