I have been driven, driven, by one with a scourge. Then that
changed to a longing. At last I resolved.... The driving was
within--as within as longing and determination. I have heard Aunt
Alison say that every myth, all world stories, are but symbols,
figures, of what goes on within. Well, I have found out about the
Furies, and about some other myths."

"Yes. They tried to tell inner things."

"I came here to say that I wronged folk from whom a man within me
cannot part. One is dead, and I have to seek her along another road.
But you are living, breathing there! I made myself your foe, and now I
wish that I could unmake what I made.... I was and am a sinful
soul.... It is for you to say if it is anything to you, what I
confess." He rose from the fire and moved once or twice the length of
the place. At last he came and stood before the other. "It is no
wonder if it be not given," he said. "But I ask your forgiveness,
Alexander!"

"Well, I give it to you," said Alexander. His face worked. He got to
his feet and went to Ian. He put his hands upon the other's shoulders.
"_Old Saracen!_" he said.

Ian shook. With the dropping of Alexander's hands he went back a step;
he sat down and hid his head in his arms.

Said Alexander: "You did thus and thus, obeying inner weakness,
calling it all the time strength. And do I not know that I, too, made
myself a shadow going after shadows? My own make of selfishness,
arrogance, and hatred.... Let us do better, you and I!" He mended the
fire. "By understanding the past may be altered. Already it is altered
with you and me.... I was here the other day. I stayed a long time.
There seemed two boys in the cave and there seemed a girl beside them.
The three felt with and understood and were one another." He came and
knelt beside Ian. "Let us forge a stronger friendship!"

Ian, face to the rock, was weeping, weeping. Alexander knelt beside
him, lay beside him, arm over heaving shoulders. Old Steadfast--Old
Saracen--and Elspeth Barrow, also, and around and through, pulsing,
cohering, interpenetrating, healing, a sense of something greater....

It passed--the torrent force, long pent, aching against its barriers.
Ian lay still, at last sat up.

"Come outside," said Alexander, "into the cold and the air."

They left the cave for the moonlight night. They leaned against the
rock, and about them hung the sleeping trees. The crag was silvered,
the stream ran with a deep under-sound. The ai