The last night in the valley was deep and secret and starry, deep blue with a streak of night-changed green where the bamboo grove was, mysterious with secret processes in grove and torrent, blue and starry like a still painting on a screen. Not far from the Pavilion a stream flowed slow and deep through a tunnel of trees and hanging creeper. Ambrose stood by a gleaming gilded bridge, listening to the rhythm of the water, feeling the close, secret life of the foliage. Over against the living wall of the grove he saw cigar-ends moving in irregular paths, fantastic planets in a dense æther. Over the bamboo flickered a myriad superb fire-insects, creation of Yuan’s. Beyond the grove burned a million gold stars. The gurgle of the mysterious river in the darkness was flowing sound, hypnotic rhythm, music streaming out in streaks of some foreign colour through the thick and shifting blue substance of the dark night. After some time, he tells us, he became aware that his strange and peaceful meditation now held a different element—a queer thridding, an insect noise coming from within the grove of bamboo. Of a sudden it rose high and clear, and he remembered that it was Lychnis—Lychnis with her lute, playing the thoughts and motions of her spirit. “Lily-blossom of the world!” he murmured to the dim lilies that swayed at his feet. “Cold loveliness of being that buds for a moment of time out of the secrecy and darkness of unbeing!” He worshipped at this living monstrance of the body of God.