om
highest to lowest is full, crammed full of suffering; every living
organism in nature preys on another, yet in your aim to get close to, to
be one with nature, you leave suffering altogether out; you run away
from it, you refuse to recognize it. And you are waiting, you say, for
the final revelation."

Frank's brow clouded slightly.

"Well?" he asked, rather wearily.

"Cannot you guess then when the final revelation will be? In joy you are
supreme, I grant you that; I did not know a man could be so master of
it. You have learned perhaps practically all that nature can teach. And
if, as you think, the final revelation is coming to you, it will be the
revelation of horror, suffering, death, pain in all its hideous forms.
Suffering does exist: you hate it and fear it."

Frank held up his hand.

"Stop; let me think," he said.

There was silence for a long minute.

"That never struck me," he said at length. "It is possible that what you
suggest is true. Does the sight of Pan mean that, do you think? Is it
that nature, take it altogether, suffers horribly, suffers to a hideous
inconceivable extent? Shall I be shown all the suffering?"

He got up and came round to where Darcy sat.

"If it is so, so be it," he said. "Because, my dear fellow, I am near,
so splendidly near to the final revelation. To-day the pipes have
sounded almost without pause. I have even heard the rustle in the
bushes, I believe, of Pan's coming. I have seen, yes, I saw to-day, the
bushes pushed aside as if by a hand, and piece of a face, not human,
peered through. But I was not frightened, at least I did not run away
this time."

He took a turn up to the window and back again.

"Yes, there is suffering all through," he said, "and I have left it all
out of my search. Perhaps, as you say, the revelation will be that. And
in that case, it will be good-bye. I have gone on one line. I shall have
gone too far along one road, without having explored the other. But I
can't go back now. I wouldn't if I could; not a step would I retrace! In
any case, whatever the revelation is, it will be God. I'm sure of that."

The rainy weather soon passed, and with the return of the sun Darcy
again joined Frank in long rambling days. It grew extraordinarily
hotter, and with the fresh bursting of life, after the rain, Frank's
vitality seemed to blaze higher and higher. Then, as is the habit of the
English weather, one evening clouds began to bank themselves up i