ow that
that is so, but the realization of it is not yet mine. But it will be,
and on that day, so I take it, I shall see Pan. It may mean death, the
death of my body, that is, but I don't care. It may mean immortal,
eternal life lived here and now and for ever. Then having gained that,
ah, my dear Darcy, I shall preach such a gospel of joy, showing myself
as the living proof of the truth, that Puritanism, the dismal religion
of sour faces, shall vanish like a breath of smoke, and be dispersed
and disappear in the sunlit air. But first the full knowledge must be
mine."

Darcy watched his face narrowly.

"You are afraid of that moment," he said.

Frank smiled at him.

"Quite true; you are quick to have seen that. But when it comes I hope
I shall not be afraid."

For some little time there was silence; then Darcy rose.

"You have bewitched me, you extraordinary boy," he said. "You have been
telling me a fairy-story, and I find myself saying, 'Promise me it is
true.'"

"I promise you that," said the other.

"And I know I sha'n't sleep," added Darcy.

Frank looked at him with a sort of mild wonder as if he scarcely
understood.

"Well, what does that matter?" he said.

"I assure you it does. I am wretched unless I sleep."

"Of course I can make you sleep if I want," said Frank in a rather
bored voice.

"Well, do."

"Very good: go to bed. I'll come upstairs in ten minutes."

Frank busied himself for a little after the other had gone, moving the
table back under the awning of the veranda and quenching the lamp. Then
he went with his quick silent tread upstairs and into Darcy's room. The
latter was already in bed, but very wide-eyed and wakeful, and Frank
with an amused smile of indulgence, as for a fretful child, sat down on
the edge of the bed.

"Look at me," he said, and Darcy looked.

"The birds are sleeping in the brake," said Frank softly, "and the
winds are asleep. The sea sleeps, and the tides are but the heaving of
its breast. The stars swing slow, rocked in the great cradle of the
Heavens, and----"

He stopped suddenly, gently blew out Darcy's candle, and left him
sleeping.

Morning brought to Darcy a flood of hard commonsense, as clear and
crisp as the sunshine that filled his room. Slowly as he woke he
gathered together the broken threads of the memories of the evening
which had ended, so he told himself, in a trick of common hypnotism.
That accounted for it all; the whole strange talk he