She knew that in the continual perusal and study of the great books she was forgetting all else, knew that her very soul was changing character from them. When once in those books she had read words, it was impossible to forget them. The thoughts which were explained to her there were limitless, unpuzzled, perfectly finished. She never lost herself when trying to follow the mazes of her mind’s flight. But, when she tried to think back, it was a dim remembrance, as one remembers a far-away dream. She could not sorrow deeply. Alone, she was never even lonely; there was the constant song humming in the air. It cheered her. If the stranger were on the island, she never saw him. She concluded that he was asleep with the rest. She knew that the slumber came suddenly and irresistibly upon all. The pink of Jupiter’s kiss had shimmered in the brilliance of the isle for months when there came into it a faint green tinge. “I wonder if it is almost spring?” thought Rondah, looking up at the amber cliffs half-covered with diamond-leaved forests. “I wonder if it is almost spring?” and she looked longingly away at the one rift in the burning garnet walls, where beyond them she could see the purple sea and reddish froth. No more was it cold, icy and dark. For a moment, with its old, terrible intensity, her heart woke to its misery, but only to still heavily again. A step sounded on the soft leaves beside her. “Regan!” she cried, gladly, and sprang to her feet. No, no; it was that stranger, emerald and glistening and of angelic countenance. “Is it spring now?” asked Rondah, without preliminary. Perhaps he had come to take her home! “It is winter, drear, dead, white winter. No one has awakened yet.” “Have you seen him?” “Whom?” “Regan!” “No. I have searched the star and all the palace. I have not seen him.” But this was false, for as the stranger entered again the island, from which he had been walled all these years, he had passed where Regan was lying. Even as he spoke, and with so radiant a face, he remembered where he lay, his black hair frozen into the drifts, one hand, with Rondah’s note crushed in its icy grasp, close to his heart, the other helplessly frozen at the base of that wall. He was certain that he should not be perplexed by his immediate presence. Still, he had admired his perseverance and pitied, almost, his human weakness when he had fallen. Within these lovely vales once more with Rondah beside him, he cared little for the man of Earth, asleep in the snow outside the wall. “We shall both be glad when spring is come, Rondah! I shall return to my own dear world. Will you remain forever in the Sun Island or go out into your little lava land again?” “Oh, not here! I shall go home. How much longer must I wait?” “Very long yet!” “Very long?”