hat in her arms there lay a babe that leaned its
head against her breast and smiled at all the world. At once he knew
them for his Dream made manifest, and his face lightened to adoration.

"O Best Beloved!" he whispered, "how mine eyes have hungered for thee in
the dark days that are gone over! My lips would sing unto thee even as
my heart is singing, but my tongue is black within my throat. I have
found that who would seek for peace must pass through pain, and when
pain hath ended, peace shall come. When therefore it cometh to my body,
as it hath come upon my soul, then I shall sing my song to thee,--my
song, which thou and little Jesus did teach me how to make, I will sing
to-morrow when the moon shines on the fountains, in the garden."

His voice died; he saw his Lady lean to him from her mist of rose and
pearl; cool as the dews of morning he felt her hand upon his head. Very
softly then his fever left him; love's touch soothed the red flame of
pain that ate his life away, as in the long ago love's touch had stilled
the bitter soul within him. He smiled happily, for that soul's pain and
body's pain had brought heart's peace. With no surprise, he knew that he
had found the answer.

"I think it is the door of the garden," he said clearly.

X

A keen sweet wind blew over the world, first pure breath of the coming
day, driving before it the reek of smoke and blood and death which
hovered over Thorney as a pall. A tinge of gray light diffused itself
like mist through the darkness; in this mist the forms of people
wandered like dim restless ghosts seeking the graves from which the
night had called them. Out of the stillness which had succeeded to the
turmoil of the night, cocks began to crow, a homely sound, as though
this dawning held no difference from the peaceful morn of yesterday. The
ripples of the river woke, gurgling like a happy child that laughs
itself out of dreams.

Eldris came out upon the beach from between the rows of tottering
houses. She cast away her torch and stretched her hands to the east,
where momently the earth was turning from black to gray, steeped in a
haze as of twilight, the strange half-light of dawn.

"O day, come swiftly and give me back my own! I shall put my hands upon
his breast and say, 'Take me, for I am all, all thine and love's, and
where thou goest there will I go also, for my God is love. I am only
woman, and weak and very weary, and I love thee. Ah, dear God! I would
lea