o realities, and the
shadows flee away. The worshipper of the Image is dead within me. But
alas! that little Wonder had to die first--"

"I used to tell myself," he went on, "that human life, however
exquisite, without art to eternalise it, was like a rose showering its
petals upon the ground. For so brief a space the rose stood perfect,
then fell in a ruin of perfume. Wonderful moments had human life, but
without art were they not like pearls falling into a gulf? So I said:
there is nothing real but art. The material of art passes--human love,
human beauty--but art remains. It is the image, not the reality, that
is everlasting. I will live in the image."

"But I know now," he once more resumed, "that there is a higher
immortality than art's,--the immortality of love. The immortality of art
indeed is one of those curious illusions of man's self-love which a
moment's thought dispels. Art, who need be told, is as dependent for its
survival on the survival of its physical media as man's body itself--and
though the epic and the great canvas escape combustion for a million
years, they must burn at last, burn with all the other accumulated
shadows of time. What we call immortality in art is but the shadow of
the soul's immortality; but the immortality of love is that of the soul
itself--"

"O Antony," interrupted Beatrice, "you really believe that now? You will
never doubt it again?"

"We never doubt what we have really seen, and I had never seen before,"
answered Antony, taking her hand and looking deep into her eyes, "never
seen it as I see it now."

"And you will never doubt it again?"

"Never."

"Whatever that voice should say to you?"

"I shall never hear that voice again."

"O Antony, is it really true? You have come back to me. I can hardly
believe it."

"Listen, Beatrice; when we return to the Valley, return only to leave it
for ever, I will take the Image and smash it in a hundred pieces--for I
hate it now as much as I once loved it. Fear not; it will never trouble
our peace again."

The mention of the valley was a momentary cloud on Beatrice's happiness,
but as she looked into Antony's resolute love-lit face, it melted away.

CHAPTER XX

ANTONY'S JUDGMENT UPON SILENCIEUX

So the weeks and months went by for those two upon the hills, and the
soul of Antony grew stronger day by day, and his love with it--and the
face of Beatrice was like a bird singing. At last the spring came, and
the snow