of face and soul.

These are but scattered hints of the story of Narcissus' love as he told
it me at last, in broken, struggling words, but with a light in his face
one power alone could set there.

When he came to the end, and to all that little Hesper had proved to
him, all the strength and illumination she had brought him, he fairly
broke down and sobbed, as one may in a brother's arms. For, of course,
he had come out of the ordeal a man; and Hesper had consented to be his
wife. Often she had dreamed as he had passed her by with such heedless
air: 'If I love him so, can it be that my love shall have no power to
make him mine, somehow, some day? Can I call to him so within my soul
and he not hear? Can I wait and he not come?' And her love had been
strong, strong as a destiny; her voice had reached him, for it was the
voice of God.

When I next saw her, what a strange brightness shone in her face, what a
new beauty was there! Ah, Love, the great transfigurer! And why, too,
was it that his friends began to be dissatisfied with their old
photographs of Narcissus, though they had been taken but six months
before? There seemed something lacking in the photograph, they said.
Yes, there was; but the face had lacked it too. What was the new
thing--'grip' was it, joy, peace? Yes, all three, but more besides, and
Narcissus had but one name for all. It was Hesper.

Strange, too, that in spite of promises we never received a new one.
Narcissus, who used to be so punctual with such a request. Perhaps it
was because he had broken his looking-glass.

CHAPTER X

'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?'

'If I love you for a year I shall love you for ever,' Narcissus had said
to his Thirteenth Maid. He did love her so long, and yet he has gone
away. Do you remember your _Les Miserables_, that early chapter where
Valjean robs the child of his florin so soon after that great
illuminating change of heart and mind had come to him? Well, still more
important, do you remember the clue Hugo gives us to aberration? There
is comfort and strength for so many a heart-breaking failure there. It
was the old impetus, we are told, that was as yet too strong for the new
control; the old instinct, too dark for the new light in the brain. It
takes every vessel some time to answer to its helm; with us, human
vessels, years, maybe. Have you never suddenly become sensitive of a
gracious touch in the air, and pondered it, to recognise that in some
h