urself; then you must know
something of the law."

The man was holding one hand out, above Carlin's head--quite still, but
not close, while he spoke. Skag felt his strength more than at first.

"Do you want her for yourself?" he asked.

Skag looked into his kind dark eyes--his own eyes speaking for him.

"Do you want her for her own sake--because she loves you? Is it that
you have knowledge what will be best for her? Did you create her--did
you prepare her ultimate destiny, do you even know it?"

"I know that I am in it!"

Skag answered very low, but with conviction. His eyes were agonised;
but the man bored into them, without relenting.

"Do you want her to come back from the margin of departure, for the
sake of others--for the sake of her ministry to their need?"

The answer to this last question came up in Skag--waves on waves,
rolling into engulfing billows.

"That answer may avail!" the man said conclusively. "If it is
accepted--if your love for her is perfect enough to forget itself--if
you are able to make your mind altogether inactive--"

"Then how shall I work--if not with my mind?" Skag interrupted.

"First know that you yourself can do nothing." The man spoke with
soft, slow emphasis. "No created being has power to do that kind of
work."

"What has?" Skag asked.

"A Power that we are not worthy to name," the man answered, with
reverence. "If it accepts your reason why she should stay--if your
love is found to be without tarnish of self--it will work her
restoration; not otherwise.

"Make yourself still. Give your mind to the apprehension of her
nature--till your mind has come to be _as if it were not_. . . .
Peace!"

The man dropped his head a moment, before he moved to stand at the food
of her bed. With his eyes on her face he leaned, laying his palms over
her feet; then, seeming to float backward to the wall, he sank
slowly--to sit as the Hindus do.

The sense of his strength seemed to fill the whole room. It was the
last outward thing Skag was aware of.

. . . It was as if Skag had passed through eons of ages trying to put
away all the tender yearning anguish of his love for Carlin. He came
to know her as a beneficent entity of high voltage--needed in more than
one place.

It must be that he should make it possible for her to serve here, more
potently than there--else she could not be held back. With all his
strength, he would try.

"Son," the mystic's voice rang out,