lit distances.

The Thin Woman and the children went slowly forward on the rugged,
sloping way. Far beyond, near the distant summit of the hill there was a
light gleaming.

"Yonder," said the Thin Woman, "is the Brugh of Angus Mac an Og, the
son of the Dagda Mor," and toward this light she assisted the weary
children.

In a little she was in the presence of the god and by him refreshed
and comforted. She told him all that had happened to her husband and
implored his assistance. This was readily accorded, for the chief
business of the gods is to give protection and assistance to such of
their people as require it; but (and this is their limitation) they
cannot give any help until it is demanded, the freewill of mankind being
the most jealously guarded and holy principle in life; therefore, the
interference of the loving gods comes only on an equally loving summons.

CHAPTER XVIII

CAITILIN NI MURRACHU sat alone in the Brugh of Angus much as she had sat
on the hillside and in the cave of Pan, and again she was thinking. She
was happy now. There was nothing more she could desire, for all that the
earth contained or the mind could describe was hers. Her thoughts were
no longer those shy, subterranean gropings which elude the hand and the
understanding. Each thought was a thing or a person, visible in its own
radiant personal life, and to be seen or felt, welcomed or repulsed, as
was its due. But she had discovered that happiness is not laughter or
satisfaction, and that no person can be happy for themselves alone. So
she had come to understand the terrible sadness of the gods, and why
Angus wept in secret; for often in the night she had heard him weeping,
and she knew that his tears were for those others who were unhappy, and
that he could not be comforted while there was a woeful person or
an evil deed hiding in the world. Her own happiness also had become
infected with this alien misery, until she knew that nothing was alien
to her, and that in truth all persons and all things were her brothers
and sisters and that they were living and dying in distress; and at
the last she knew that there was not any man but mankind, nor any human
being but only humanity. Never again could the gratification of a desire
give her pleasure for her sense of oneness was destroyed--she was not an
individual only; she was also part of a mighty organism ordained, through
whatever stress, to achieve its oneness, and this great being was