n I ran to the gate and looked out, but the horses
were gone from sight--they have left the Garden--they are free--"

"And happy!" said David in a terrible voice. "They, too, have only been
held by fear and never by love. Let them go. Let all go which is kept
here by fear. Why should I care? I am enough by myself. When all is gone
and I am alone the Voice shall return and be my companion. It is well.
Let every living thing depart. David is enough unto himself. Go, Elijah!
And yet pause before you go!"

He went into his room and came out bearing the heavy chest of money,
which he carried to the gate.

"Go to your brothers and bid them come for the money. It will make them
rich enough in the world beyond the mountains, but to me there is need
of no money. Silence and peace is my wish. Go, and let me hear their
voices no more, let me not see one face. Ingrates, fools, and traitors!
Let them find their old places; I have no regret. Begone!"

And Elijah, as one under the shadow of a raised whip, skulked from the
patio and was gone.

_CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX_

The last quiet began for David. He had heard the sounds of departure. He
had heard the rumble of the oxwains begin and go slowly toward the gate
with never the sound of a human voice, and he pictured, with a grim
satisfaction, the downcast faces and the frightened, guilty glances, as
his servants fled, conscious that they were betraying their master. It
filled him with a sort of sulky content which was more painful than
sorrow. But before the sound of the wagons died out the wind blew back
from the gate of the Garden a thin, joyous chorus of singing voices.
They were leaving him with songs!

He was incredulous for a time. He felt, first, a great regret that he
had let them go. Then, in an overwhelming wave of righteousness, he
determined to dismiss them from his mind. They were gone; but worse
still, the horses were gone, and the valley around him was empty! He
remembered the dying prophecy of Abraham, now, as the stern Elijah had
repeated it. He had let the world into the Garden, and the tide of the
world's life, receding, would take all the life of the Garden away
beyond the mountains among other men.

The feeling that Connor had been right beset him: that the four first
masters had been wrong, and that they had raised David in error. Yet his
pride still upheld him.

That day he went resolutely about the routine. He was not hungry, but
when the time came