l his loving care was
centred. So it was commanded that I be taken to the lowest dungeon cell,
there to meditate upon the sins which were mine.... I think that in all
the world no man knows darkness as do I. Night is not dark; it hath the
silver stars above it, and in the world the red earth-stars of men. But
I was in darkness which was the darkness of the grave made manifest; it
pressed upon mine eyes like leaden weights, and numbed my brain, and was
a cloak which smothered me. What hours rolled on I knew not. I was fed
or I starved; all was one. There was no time, there was no life, there
was no death; there was but a naked soul sitting in still darkness. Five
paces is my cell from wall to wall; shoulder high above the floor is a
jutting stone. I doubt not that it is red with blood, since each time I
passed, it scored me if I had not care."

Her shiver brought his glance back to her; with a smile he woke to
recollection of her presence.

"I cry not thy sympathy, sweet sister; for there were times, and these
were many, when the door of that dungeon opened wide, and Hito himself
could not take from me my freedom. When I was back upon the moors with
shepherds, who listened while I spoke; when I was by the camp-fires of
Thorney in the Fords and men left their business at my word; and there
was no darkness then in all the world. Back on the hills, where the
clouds sweep free and the wind calls; back in the press of life, amid
the crowding feet of men; back in the Garden of Lost Dreams, where
flowers bloomed and grass was green and tender, and brown birds sang of
love and life and freedom. And Hito, fond fool, rubbed his hands and
thought he held me caged!"

He was very far from her again, in his own strange world; and she sat
and watched him, her soul in her shining eyes, if he had but seen it,
and knew she could not enter with him. He spoke more quickly; his voice
fell to a deeper note, and in it was a mystery at which Eldris caught
her breath.

"And out of the darkness there came a Tale to me, and thereafter there
was light. And the tale is not yet ended--but it grows, it grows! Night
and day it rings within my head; always it is with me, mine and mine
only. But there is that in it which eludes me, which I seek and cannot
find. And until I find it, the tale is not yet done. And it is of a
Child, a Babe who lay within his mother's arms and smiled at all the
world."

Eldris started, and her eyes, fixed upon his face,