The house seemed so familiarly quiet and peaceful that the turmoil of her mind became all unreal to her. Surely the least honest effort must suffice to bring back her old fearlessness of outlook. Her birthday presents lay on the table, amongst them Ted's Shelley, open, curiously enough, at the "Adonais." Her eye glanced at the verses, became fascinated; she stood reading until with a sigh of infinite satisfaction she closed the book over those words: 'The One remains, the Many change and pass!' That was beautiful. That calmed the soul. Gwen's dead face came back to her now without any terror in it. The Sting of Death was gone. But Love--the love that Gwen had felt, of which she herself was not all unconscious, what of that? Dimly, darkly, as in a glass, the girl saw that to be noble it must be the antithesis of Death--it must be Birth. But that was not the Love of the world. What had Mervyn, what had Gwen, thought of Birth? Nothing. If anything they had hoped to evade it. They had tried to take the Pleasure without incurring the Pain. They had not thought of anything but themselves. She passed on to the window-sill and looked down once more on the "most beautiful thing in the most beautiful place in the world." But what was that really? Was it Love standing between Birth and Death, or was it something better? Something beyond both. Something of which but a glimpse could be caught during that journey between the Cradle and the Grave? So, for one brief moment as she stood looking at the iris she saw that Something, beyond Birth, beyond Death, beyond even Love. A shimmer came to the air, her pulses caught the rhythm, and lo! she was no more, the One was All, and from the uttermost end of Space came back the ceaseless Wave of Unity. And then?... Then the fear of death re-asserted itself. Surely the flags of the iris showed limp! The dear thing must not stop there without due foothold on the round world, else would it lose the immortality of new birth. So, tired as she was, she lifted it up, saxifrage and all, in both her hands, went downstairs, and so across the lawn to a place she wotted of where it might grow undisturbed by fear of old Adam's meddling fork. There was a certain solemnity about her necessarily slow movements, and she felt almost as if she were conducting a funeral. And so in truth it was; a funeral of her careless girlhood. She was a woman now; she had begun to understand herself. Yet as she laid the flower on the spot where she intended to plant it and went for her trowel, the pity of the funeral hit her hard, and when she returned Ned's blue eyes seemed to look at her appealingly from the iris's broad face. His were such beautiful eyes! She dug furiously, forgetful of everything but her desire to bury, until a step sounded beside her, and she looked up to see another pair of blue eyes broader, bolder, looking down at her.