drunk of the Cup of the Ineffable, I have found the key of the
Mystery, Travelling by no track I have come to the Sorrowless Land; very
easily has the mercy of the great Lord come upon me. Wonderful is that
Land of rest to which no merit can win. There have I seen joy filled
to the brim, perfection of joy. He dances in rapture and waves of form
arise from His dance. He holds all within his bliss."

"What is that?"

"It is from the songs of the great Indian mystic--Kabir. Let me read you
more. It is like the singing of a lark, lost in the infinite of light
and heaven."

So in the soft darkness I heard for the first time those immortal words;
and hearing, a faint glimmer of understanding broke upon me as to
the source of the peace that surrounded her. I had accepted it as an
emanation of her own heart when it was the pulsing of the tide of the
Divine. She read, choosing a verse here and there, and I listened with
absorption.

Suppose I had been wrong in believing that sorrow is the keynote
of life; that pain is the road of ascent, if road there be; that an
implacable Nature and that only, presides over all our pitiful struggles
and seekings and writes a black "Finis" to the holograph of our
existence?

What then? What was she teaching me? Was she the Interpreter of a Beauty
eternal in the heavens, and reflected like a broken prism in the beauty
that walked visible beside me? So I listened like a child to an unknown
language, yet ventured my protest.

"In India, in this wonderful country where men have time and will for
speculation such thoughts may be natural. Can they be found in the
West?"

"This is from the West--might not Kabir himself have said it? Certainly
he would have felt it. 'Happy is he who seeks not to understand the
Mystery of God, but who, merging his spirit into Thine, sings to
Thy face, O Lord, like a harp, understanding how difficult it is to
know--how easy to love Thee.' We debate and argue and the Vision passes
us by. We try to prove it, and kill it in the laboratory of our minds,
when on the altar of our souls it will dwell for ever."

Silence--and I pondered. Finally she laid the book aside, and repeated
from memory and in a tone of perfect music; "Kabir says, 'I shall go
to the House of my Lord with my Love at my side; then shall I sound the
trumpet of triumph.'"

And when she left me alone in the moonlight silence the old doubts came
back to me--the fear that I saw only through her eyes