! She remembered Androvsky's face
looking at her out of the heart of the sun as they met for the first
time in the blue country. In that moment she put him consciously in
the place of God, and there was nothing within her to say, "You are
committing mortal sin."

She looked into the book once more and her eyes fell upon the words
which she had read on her first morning in Beni-Mora:

"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is not
tired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it is
not disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mounteth
upwards and securely passeth through all. Whosoever loveth knoweth the
cry of this voice."

She had always loved these words and thought them the most beautiful in
the book, but now they came to her with the newness of the first spring
morning that ever dawned upon the world. The depth of them was laid bare
to her, and, with that depth, the depth of her own heart. The paralysis
of anguish passed from her. She no longer looked to Nature as one
dumbly seeking help. For they led her to herself, and made her look
into herself and her own love and know it. "When frightened it is
not disturbed--it securely passeth through all." That was absolutely
true--true as her love. She looked down into her love, and she saw there
the face of God, but thought she saw the face of human love only. And
it was so beautiful and so strong that even the tears upon it gave her
courage, and she said to herself: "Nothing matters, nothing can matter
so long as I have this love within me. He is going away, but I am not
sad, for I am going with him--my love, all that I am--that is going with
him, will always be with him."

Just then it seemed to her that if she had seen Androvsky lying dead
before her on the sand she could not have felt unhappy. Nothing could do
harm to a great love. It was the one permanent, eternally vital thing,
clad in an armour of fire that no weapon could pierce, free of all
terror from outside things because it held its safety within its own
heart, everlastingly enough, perfectly, flawlessly complete for and in
itself. For that moment fear left her, restlessness left her. Anyone
looking in upon her from the garden would have looked in upon a great,
calm happiness.

Presently there came a step upon the sand of the garden walks. A man,
going slowly, with a sort of passionate reluctance, as if something
immensely strong was trying to hold him