be joined in this life, here and now, to an unspeakable beauty and power
whose true believers we are because we have seen and known. There is no
love so binding as the same purpose. Perhaps that is the only true love.
And so we shall never be apart though we may never in this world be
together again in what is called companionship."

"We shall meet," I said confidently. She smiled and was silent.

"Do we follow a will-o'-the wisp in parting? Do we give up the substance
for the shadow? Shall I stay?"

She laughed joyously;

"We give a single rose for a rose-tree that bears seven times seven.
Daily I see more, and you are going where you will be instructed. As you
know my mother prefers for a time to have my cousin with her to help her
with the book she means to write. So I shall have time to myself. What
do you think I shall do?"

"Blow away on a great wind. Ride on the crests of tossing waves. Catch a
star to light the fireflies!"

She laughed like a bird's song.

"Wrong--wrong! I shall be a student. All I know as yet has come to me
by intuition, but there is Law as well as Love and I will learn. I have
drifted like a happy cloud before the wind. Now I will learn to be the
wind that blows the clouds."

I looked at her in astonishment. If a flower had desired the same thing
it could scarcely have seemed more incredible, for I had thought her
whole life and nature instinctive not intellective. She smiled as one
who has a beloved secret to keep.

"When you have gained what in this country they call The Knowledge of
Regeneration, come back and ask me what I have learnt."

She would say no more of that and turned to another matter, speaking
with earnestness;

"Before you came here I had a message for you, and Stephen Clifden
will tell you the same thing when you meet. Believe it for it is true.
Remember always that the psychical is not the mystical and that what we
seek is not marvel but vision. These two things are very far apart, so
let the first with all its dangers pass you by, for our way lies to the
heights, and for us there is only one danger--that of turning back and
losing what the whole world cannot give in exchange. I have never seen
Stephen Clifden but I know much of him. He is a safe guide--a man who
has had much and strange sorrow which has brought him joy that cannot be
told. He will take you to those who know the things that you desire. I
wish I might have gone too."

Something in the sweetness