I had forgotten my companion for the time: one glance at her drove the terror from my mind. I saw the beauty of the benignance that shone upon her face, and my spirit nestled in her protecting smile that had interpreted aright the horrors of my thoughts. I was not merely thankful that I had not been alone with my terrible longing: I could almost give my life up to this being who swept out my fear by the loving-kindness of her glance. My guardians had been unwilling to trust me alone in the faleena, even though the engine and the machinery were simple enough to have been managed by a child. So they sent with me Thyriel, who, I long afterwards found, had been selected by the sages as my spiritual twin as soon as they had tested my past history, my faculties, and my possibilities. None other in the whole community was so fitted to stimulate my best qualities, to be preferred by me as intimate friend and comrade or, if passionate emotions followed the same direction as friendship, to mate with me as parent or proparent, when full maturity had been reached. This I came to know only when all had fallen out as they had anticipated and desired. We were both allowed our full option and free will in our spiritual approaches and agreements: we were not forced into each other’s company, only when opportunity for mutual protection or confidence came were we paired for the venture. Everything issued as they had planned just as if we had had no free choice in the matter, and yet our impulses felt as free as if we had been the only living organisms in the universe. We chose with a passion that would not be denied; we were willing in our freedom of attraction to surrender life and all to each other. This flight was one of the first great adventures on which we were together, and it is graven upon my very heart. Thyriel, O Thyriel, I await thee with soul weary of waiting! What are the years now but centuries without thee? I am alone but for God and thee. It is the only consolation of my soul that thou risest ever towards God and livest in God, and that I rise and live with thee.