Large pipes of lead, doubtless hidden when the city flourished, appeared to come from a spot in the cliff, where was the spring which supplied the fountain. To the end of one of them a tap had been recently soldered. Ralph turned it. A jet of water darted out of it, a trifle muddy. “L’Eau de Jouvence,” said Ralph. “This is the water that was in the bottle they took from the death-bed of your grandfather. The analysis of it was written on the label of that bottle.” For two hours they strolled about this fabulous city. Aurelie felt again the sensations she had felt on her first visit, latent in the depths of her being, and suddenly revived. She had seen that group of funeral urns, and this mutilated Goddess and that street with broken pavement and this arcade that made her tremble with melancholy joy. She said softly: “My beloved, it is to you that I owe all this happiness. But for you I should feel nothing but misery. While I am with you everything is beautiful and delightful. I love you.” At ten o’clock the bells of Clermont-Ferrand were chiming for High Mass. Aurelie and Ralph came to the mouth of the passage. The two cascades poured into it, running on the right and left of the triumphal way, and vanished down four open sluices. The amazing visit came to an end. As Ralph said once more, that which had been hidden during the ages must not yet appear in the light of day. No one must see it before the hour at which Aurelie should have been acknowledged its mistress. Therefore he closed the sluices which let the water run out and slowly turned the winch of the flood-gates and little by little opened them. Forthwith the water began to accumulate in the confined area; the big lake pouring in in a broad sheet of water, the two cascades rearing above their stone beds. Then they ascended the cliff by the path down which Ralph had come the night before with the two crooks, and stopping half way, they saw the water rising quickly in the little lake, flowing round the bases of the temple and rising quickly towards the magic spring. “Yes: magic,” said Ralph. “That was the word the old Marquess used. In addition to the constituents of the springs at Royat it contains, according to him, principles of energy and strength, principles springing from an astonishing radio-activity of an almost incredible power. Rich Romans of the third and fourth centuries came to rejuvenate themselves at this spring; and it was thee last proconsul of the province of Gaul who, after the death of Theodosius and the fall of the Empire, decided to hide it from the eyes of the invading barbarians and protect against their enterprises the marvels of Juvains. Among many others a secret inscription bears witness to it: “By the will of Fabius Aralla, Proconsul, in order to protect them from the Scythians and the Borussi, the waters of the lake have covered the Gods whom I loved and the temples in which I worshiped them.”