without.... It is not for you--the
red desire of love!"

* * * * *

It was during these years in India that Bedient began to put down the
thoughts which delighted him during the long rides through the forest;
and something of the thrill of his reflections, as he watched old
_God-Mother_ from his cliff. He found great delight in this, and his
mind was integrated by expression. He recalled many little pictures of
the early years--not the actions, but the reflections of action. It was
fascinating. He found that his journal would bulk big presently, so he
took to polishing as he went along; chose the finest, toughest Indian
parchment--and wrote finely as this print--for it was clear to him that
he had entered upon what was to prove a life-habit.

The letters from Captain Carreras had become more frequent in late
years; in fact, there was almost always a letter en route either from
Preshbend or Equatoria.... The Captain wanted him to come; stronger and
stronger became the call. So far as money was concerned, he had done
extraordinarily well. He always wrote of this half-humorously.... At
last when Bedient was beginning his seventh year in the Punjab, there
came a letter which held a plaint not to be put aside.

Bedient was in his thirty-second year; and just at this time old Gobind
left his body for a last time beneath the camphor-tree. The young man
had sat before him the night before, and the holy man had told him in
symbolism--that the poor murky river of his life had made its last bend
through the forests, and was swiftly flowing into the sea of time and
space. Though he sat long after silence had settled down, Bedient did
not know (so softly and sweetly did the old saint depart) that the
_Sannyasin_ was tranced in death instead of meditation. It was not
until the next morning, when he heard the Sikh women of the village
weeping--one above all--that he understood. It was not a shock of grief
to these women, for such is their depth that the little matters which
concern all flesh and which are inevitable, cannot be made much ado of.
Still it was feminine and beautiful to him, their weeping; and possibly
the one who wept loudest had mothered old Gobind in her heart, and
there was emptiness in the thought that she could not fill his
begging-bowl again. Bedient, as well as others of the village, knew
that to Gobind, death was a long-awaited consummation; that he was gone
only from the physi