nerved. If you hadn't come to me, I don't know what I
should have done. The first time it was different. I wonder why. I
wasn't a bit like this, was I, dearest?"

"No, I don't know why you feel so differently this time. What
happened? Can you tell me, or would you rather wait?" Mike recognized
her nervous state.

"I came out to see the sunrise. I hadn't slept--I was thinking about
the opening of the tomb and of all that is to happen afterwards." Mike
kissed her tenderly and understandingly. "I was really feeling very
selfish and worldly; and anything but spiritual. I was wondering if
your plans weren't too utterly silly, dearest, if, after all, we hadn't
got into a rather unreal and unhealthy way of looking at things. I was
almost convinced that you ought to stop standing on your head. Quite
suddenly the luminous figure, with the sunrays behind its head, stood
in front of me. Its eyes were fixed on me with a full and wonderful
understanding of all that was in my heart. I instantly knew that my
fears were understood, and the odd thing, now that I look back upon it,
is that I wasn't afraid. The understanding seemed natural, the
understanding of my higher self. It was only when the vision grew
dimmer and dimmer that I began to feel this silly nerve-exhaustion; it
was only then that I began to wonder and doubt."

"I'm not surprised, Meg--you're splendid. Any other woman would have
fainted, I suppose."

"No, Mike, they wouldn't; once you've seen and understood, it is like
being born again, with fresh understanding, with fresh eyes. There's
nothing more to be afraid of than there is in seeing death. I was
terrified of death until I saw Uncle Harry die. This is just the same
thing. Your fear is forgotten, a new understanding possesses you. My
only wonder is why I have never seen anything of the same sort before,
and now why, oh why, is it this strange figure of Akhnaton? Why this
King who lived thirteen hundred years before we begin to count our
centuries? I should so love to see Uncle Harry, and it is such a
little time since he went. Why have I never seen him?"

"My darling, three thousand years are like the minutes spent in boiling
an egg when you dabble with eternity. There is nothing to choose
between Noah and Napoleon; Moses and Mohammed are twins in point of
years."

"I know," Meg said. "There is nothing so hard for a human mind to
grasp as the impossibility of grasping the meaning of