tory of Red Godwyn and Alys of the
Sea-Blue Eyes. I did not make a single statement having any connection
with myself, but throughout I was calling on her to think of herself and
of me as of those two. I saw her in my own arms, with the tears of Alys
on her lashes. I was making mad love, though she was unconscious of my
doing it."

"How do you know she was unconscious?" remarked Mr. Penzance. "You are a
very strong man."

Mount Dunstan's short laugh was even a little awful, because it meant so
much. He let his forehead drop a moment on to his arms as they rested on
the mantelpiece.

"Oh, my God!" he said. But the next instant his head lifted itself. "It
is the mystery of the world--this thing. A tidal wave gathering itself
mountain high and crashing down upon one's helplessness might be as
easily defied. It is supposed to disperse, I believe. That has been said
so often that there must be truth in it. In twenty or thirty or forty
years one is told one will have got over it. But one must live through
the years--one must LIVE through them--and the chief feature of one's
madness is that one is convinced that they will last forever."

"Go on," said Mr. Penzance, because he had paused and stood biting his
lip. "Say all that you feel inclined to say. It is the best thing you
can do. I have never gone through this myself, but I have seen and known
the amazingness of it for many years. I have seen it come and go."

"Can you imagine," Mount Dunstan said, "that the most damnable thought
of all--when a man is passing through it--is the possibility of its
GOING? Anything else rather than the knowledge that years could change
or death could end it! Eternity seems only to offer space for it. One
knows--but one does not believe. It does something to one's brain."

"No scientist, howsoever profound, has ever discovered what," the vicar
mused aloud.

"The Book of Revelations has shown to me how--how MAGNIFICENT life might
be!" Mount Dunstan clenched and unclenched his hands, his eyes flashing.
"Magnificent--that is the word. To go to her on equal ground to take her
hands and speak one's passion as one would--as her eyes answered. Oh,
one would know! To bring her home to this place--having made it as it
once was--to live with her here--to be WITH her as the sun rose and set
and the seasons changed--with the joy of life filling each of them. SHE
is the joy of Life--the very heart of it. You see where I am--you see!"

"Yes," Penza