ining it for a moment, and then let him
go. The boy kept close to him, examining him attentively, when we got
inside the house, with restless, affectionate glances.

"What makes you so pale?" he said.

"Ah!" said Arthur, with a smile, "no one else can tell except
ourselves what makes our face so white; but you will be white like
this soon," he said: "it is our dark English days, not like your
Persian sun."

"Then I shall be glad to be like that," said the boy, "if that is how
the English look."

He went off on a tour of exploration about the house, soon
discovering his room, with which he was enraptured.

In the garden, later on in the evening, he came to Arthur with a
letter in his hand. "This is for you," he said. "I had almost
forgotten it. But it is too dark to read it here; I shall fetch you a
light." And he brought the lamp out of the house, and stood holding
it, as it burnt unwavering in the still night air.

Arthur read it and handed it to me, while the great moths and
transparent delicate flies came and blundered against it.

"Edward will give you this letter himself. His hand will touch your
hand. It has come about as I anticipated, neither sooner nor later;
and I am glad.

"Dear friend, all is not well with you; I heard it in the night. But
the passages of the house are often dark, though the hills are full
of light; yet the Master's messengers pass to and fro between the
high halls bearing lamps; such a messenger I send you.

"You must not be dismayed, either now or later, for all is well. In
our mysteries, when the youth first tastes the chalice, he can hardly
keep his mind upon the Red Wine of Life, the Blood of the Earth, as
he would fain do, for thinking of the cup, and how tremblingly he
holds it, and for fear that the crimson juice be spilt; but all the
while, though he sees it not, the priest's hand encircles the gold
stem.

"Martin, _my_ son (for Edward is now yours--mine no longer), is even
nearer the end than when I spoke with you; and you too are nearer,
far nearer, though you know it not. And even in this little letter,
I have spoken words to you which, if you had but light to read them,
would make all plain.

"The hour is at hand; the clock has jarred and is silent again, but
the gear murmurs on in the darkness, waiting for the silver chiming
of the bell.

"I am your friend always,
"B.
"TEHERAN,
"Midsummer."

"A curious document," I said.