She was gone to her kingdom of fairy-land, and Nurse with her.
Long mourned Balder for his vanished playmate!

Salome has kept her secret well. And now, there she sits, her
long-lost baby's head in her lap, thinking of old times; and the
longer she thinks, the more she softens and expands. Has she done a
great wrong in her life? Surely she has suffered greatly, and in a
manner that might well wither her to the core. But there must still
have been a germ of life in the shrivelled seed, which this
night--memorable in her existence--has begun to quicken.

By and by come a few tears, with a struggle at first, then more
easily. Kind darkness lets us think of Salome bright and comely as in
the old days, with the added grace of inward beauty wrought by sad
experience. But, in truth, she is marred past earthly recovery.
Nothing removes a soul so far from human sympathy as
self-repression,--especially for any merely human end!

The night creeps reluctantly westward; the gray owl wings back to his
shady corner; the adventurous snail, half-way up the palm-tree, glues
himself to the bark and turns in for a nap. The crocodile has resumed
his old position on the rock in the pool, and the flower petal floats
on the water. Here comes the brilliant hoopoe with his smart crest and
clear chirrup, impatient to bid Gnulemah good morning! All is as
before, save that the group beneath the palm-trees has disappeared!

Balder slept late, yet, on awakening, he thought he must be dreaming
still. He could not distinguish imagination from reality. His mind had
temporarily lost its grasp, his will its authority. Where was he? Was
it years or hours since he had entered Boston harbor?

Suddenly rose before him the vision of the deadly struggle on the
midnight sea. Round this central point the rest crystallized in order.
His heart sank, and he sighed most heavily. But presently he rose to
his elbow and stared about in bewilderment. Had he ever seen this room
before? How came he here?

He was lying on a carved bedstead, furnished with sheets of fine linen
and a counterpane of blue embroidered satin; but all bearing an
appearance of great age. The room was oval, like a bird's-egg halved
lengthwise; the smoothly vaulted ceiling being frescoed with a crowd
of figures. The rich and costly furniture harmonized with the
bedstead, and bore the same marks of age. The chairs and lounge were
satin-covered; the sumptuous toilet-table was fitted with a mir