quality as wholly at variance with
reality. The rocky coast of Yaque was literally a massive, natural
wall; and girt by it lay the heart of the island, fertile and
populous and clothed in mystery. This new face which Nature turned
to him was a glorified face, and some way _it meant what he meant_.

St. George was off for a few steps, trampling impatiently over the
coarse grass of the bank. Somewhere in that dim valley--was she
there, was she there? Was she in trouble, did she need him, did she
think of him? St. George went through the ancient, delicious list
as conscientiously as if he were the first lover, and she were the
first princess, and this were the first ascent of Yaque that the
world had ever known. For by some way of miracle, the mystery of the
island was suddenly to him the very mystery of his love, and the two
so filled his heart that he could not have told of which he was
thinking. That which had lain, shadowy and delicious, in his soul
these many days--not so very many, either, if one counts the
suns--was become not only a thing of his soul but a thing of the
outside world, almost of the visible world, something that had
existed for ever and which he had just found out; and here, wrapped
in nameless light, lay its perfect expression. When a shaft of
silver smote the long grass at his feet, and the edge of the moon
rose above the mountain, St. George turned with a poignant
exultation--did a mere victory over half a continent ever make a man
feel like that?--and strode back to the others.

"Come on," he called ringingly in a voice that did everything but
confess in words that something heavenly sweet was in the man's
mind, "let's be off!"

Amory was carefully lighting his pipe.

"I feel sort of tense," he explained, "as if the whole place would
explode if I threw down my match. What do you think of it?"

St. George did not answer.

"It's a place where all the lines lead up," he was saying to
himself, "as they do in a cathedral."

The four went the fragrant way that led to the heart of the island.
First the path followed the high bank the branches of whose tropical
undergrowth brushed their faces with brief gift of perfume. On the
other side was a wood of slim trunks, all depths of shadow and
delicacies of borrowed light in little pools. Everywhere, everywhere
was a chorus of slight voices, from bark and air and secret moss,
singing no forced notes of monotone, but piping a true song of the
gladne