and sense that confound. "We shall all know _when we are able to
bear it_," he had once heard another say, and it seemed to him now
that at last he was able to bear it, as if the sense of the
uninterrupted connection between the two worlds was almost a part of
his own consciousness. A moment's deeper thought, a quicker flowing
of the imagination, a little more poignant projecting of himself
above the abyss and he, too, would understand. It came to him that
he had almost understood every time that he had looked at Olivia.
Ah, he thought, and how exquisite, how matchless she was, and what
Heaven beyond Heaven the world would hold for him if only she were
to love him. St. George lifted the little hand that hung at her
side, and stooped momentarily to touch his cheek to the soft hair
that swept her shoulder. Here for him lay the sweet of life--the
sweet of the world, ay, and the sweet of all the world's mysteries.
This alien land was no nearer the truth than he. His love was the
expression of its mystery. They went back through the great
archway, and entered the palace park. Once more the slim-trunked
trees flew past them with the fringes of light expressing the
borders of the dusk. St. George crouched, half-kneeling, on the
floor of the tonneau, his free hand protecting Olivia's face from
the leaning branches of heavy-headed flowers. He had been so
passionately anxious that she should know that he was on the island,
near her, ready to serve her; but now, save for his alarm and
anxiety about her, he felt a shy, profound gratitude that the hour
had fallen as it had fallen. Whatever was to come, this nearness to
her would be his to remember and possess. It had been his supreme
hour. Whether she had recognized him in that moment on the road,
whether she ever knew what had happened made, he thought, no
difference. But if she was to open her eyes as they reached the
border of the park, and if she was to know that it was like this
that the genie had come out of the jar--the mere notion made him
giddy, and he saw that Heaven may have little inner Heaven-courts
which one is never too happy to penetrate.

But Olivia did not stir or unclose her eyes. The great strain of the
evening, the terror and shock of its ending, the very relief with
which she had, at all events, realized herself in the hands of
friends were more than even an island princess could pass through in
serenity. And when at last from the demesne of enchantment the c