The words affected him as though great Pan had uttered them from the mountains far behind.  He turned his eyes towards them.  It seemed as though Nature herself had spoken to him.  The words caressed him as with a hand now cold, now warm, and he became a different being.  For he had lost himself—­lost himself in her as she walked along the river-bank and climbed the hillside.  She seemed to draw fresh power from the woods, to grow taller, more agile, more vigorous.  The fervour of her eyes, the richness of her voice, the grace of her movements, the glimpses of her soul, had allured him down there in the valley, beside the rushing river, and the feeling of loss of individuality had increased with the exertion and the excitement.  No ball-room or play-ground, no gymnasium or riding-school can display the physical powers, and the spirit which underlies them, the unity of mind and body, as does the scaling of steep hills and rocky slopes.  At last, intoxicated by these feelings, he thought to himself—­I am climbing after her, climbing to the highest pinnacle of happiness.  Up there!  Up there!  The composure of her manner towards him, her freedom from embarrassment, maddened him.  Up there!  Up there!  And ever as they mounted she became more spirited, he more distressed.  Up there!  Up there!  His eyes grew dim, for a few seconds he could not move, could not speak.  Then she had said, “Now you must look at the sea.”

He seemed to see with different eyes, to be endowed with new sensations, and these new sensations gave answer to what the distant mountains had said.  They answered the sea out there before him, the island-studded sea, the open sea beyond, the wide swelling ocean, the desires and destinies of life all the world over.  The sea lay steel-bright beneath the suffused sunlight, and seemed to gaze on the rugged land as on a beloved child instinct with vital power.  Cling thou to the mighty one, or thy strength will be thine undoing!

And many of the inventions which he had dreamed of loomed vaguely before him.  They lay outside there.  It depended on him whether he should one day bring them safely into port.

“What are you thinking about?” said she, the sound of her voice put these thoughts to flight and recalled him to the present.  He felt how full and rich her contralto voice was, A moment ago he could have told her this, and more besides, as an introduction to still more.  Now he sat down without answering, and she did the same.

“I come up here very often,” she said, “to look at the sea.  From here it seems the source of life and death; down there it is a mere highway.”  He smiled.  She continued:  “The sea has this power, that whatever pre-occupation one may bring up here, it vanishes in a moment; but down below it remains with one.”

He looked at her.

“Yes, it is true,” said she, and coloured.

“I do not in the least doubt it,” he replied.

But she did not continue the subject.  “You are looking at the saplings, I see.”