r and joy. A half-mad woman, without memory,
knew again whence she came and whither she was going; and bewildered and
happy, with a hungering tenderness, moved her hand over the head of her
poor dwarf, as though she would know if he were truly her own son. A
new spirit also had come into Parpon's eyes, gentler, less weird, less
distant. With the advent of their joy a great yearning came to save
Elise. They hung watchful, solicitous, over her bed.

It must go hard with her, and twenty-four hours would see the end or a
fresh beginning. She had fought back the fever too long, her brain
and emotions had been strung to a fatal pitch, and the disease, like a
hurricane, carried her on for hours, tearing at her being.

Her own mother sat in a corner, stricken and numb. At last she fell
asleep in her chair, but Parpon and his mother slept not at all. Now and
again the dwarf went to the door and looked out at the night, so still,
and full of the wonder of growth and rest.

Far up on Dalgrothe Mountain a soft brazen light lay like a shield
against the sky, a strange, hovering thing. Parpon knew it to be the
reflection of the campfires in the valley, where Lagroin and his men
were sleeping. There came, too, out of the general stillness, a long,
low murmur, as though nature were crooning: the untiring rustle of the
river, the water that rolled on and never came back again. Where did
they all go--those thousands of rivers for ever pouring on, lazily or
wildly? What motive? What purpose? Just to empty themselves into
the greater waters, there to be lost? Was it enough to travel on so
inevitably to the end, and be swallowed up?

And these millions of lives hurrying along? Was it worth while living,
only to grow older and older, and, coming, heavy with sleep, to the
Homestead of the Ages, enter a door that only opened inwards, and be
swallowed up in the twilight? Why arrest the travelling, however swift
it be? Sooner or later it must come--with dusk the end of it.

The dwarf heard the moaning of the stricken girl, her cry, "Valmond!
Valmond!" the sobs that followed, the woe of her self-abnegation, even
in delirium.

For one's self it mattered little, maybe, the attitude of the mind,
whether it would arrest or be glad of the terrific travel; but for
another human being, who might judge? Who might guess what was best for
the other; what was most merciful, most good? Destiny meant us to prove
our case against it, as well as we might;