ugh if I had I would still do
it."

There was silence and down a long arcade, without any touch of her hand
I heard the music, receding with exquisite modulations to a very great
distance, and between the pillared stems, I saw a faint light.

"Do you wish to go?"

"Entirely. But I shall not forget you, Stephen. I will tell you
something. For me, since I came to India, the gate that shuts us out at
birth has opened. How shall I explain? Do you remember Kipling's 'Finest
Story in the World'?"

"Yes. Fiction!"

"Not fiction--true, whether he knew it or no. But for me the door has
opened wide. First, I remembered piecemeal, with wide gaps, then more
connectedly. Then, at the end of the first year, I met one day at
Cawnpore, an ascetic, an old man of great beauty and wisdom, and he was
able by his own knowledge to enlighten mine. Not wholly--much has come
since then. Has come, some of it in ways you could not understand
now, but much by direct sight and hearing. Long, long ago I lived in
Peshawar, and my story was a sorrowful one. I will tell you a little
before I go."

"I hold you to your promise. What is there I cannot believe when you
tell me? But does that life put you altogether away from me? Was there
no place for me in any of your memories that has drawn us together now?
Give me a little hope that in the eternal pilgrimage there is some bond
between us and some rebirth where we may met again."

"I will tell you that also before we part. I have grown to believe that
you do love me--and therefore love something which is infinitely above
me."

"And do you love me at all? Am I nothing, Vanna--Vanna?"

"My friend," she said, and laid her hand on mine.

A silence, and then she spoke, very low.

"You must be prepared for very great change, Stephen, and yet believe
that it does not really change things at all. See how even the gods pass
and do not change! The early gods of India are gone and Shiva, Vishnu,
Krishna have taken their places and are one and the same. The old
Buddhist stories say that in heaven "The flowers of the garland the
God wore are withered, his robes of majesty are waxed old and faded;
he falls from his high estate, and is re-born into a new life." But he
lives still in the young God who is born among men. The gods cannot die,
nor can we nor anything that has life. Now I must go in."

I sat long in the moonlight thinking. The whole camp was sunk in sleep
and the young dawn was waking upon t