The thatches below were trimmed and even. There were spaces between them, and from the heights these spaces had the clean look of a brown polished floor. There was depth and purity in the green of the lake, and the little temple, in the midst of its gardens, was white as Truth. * * * * * They were in a swept and shaded village. The woman was walking swiftly, her lips parted, her eyes feverishly bright. Routledge laughed quietly at her ardor to see the man whom his heart knew to be there and always waiting. The huts seemed deserted, except for those _who could not leave_. A voice reached them at last--the voice that had echoed through the inner consciousness of each so long.... His back was toward them. The people upon the earth before him, they did not see--save as factors of the scene. Swiftly they moved forward now. Rawder’s hand was raised in the sunlight. It was slender, nervously responsive to his emotion--but whole, _whole_! A little way off they halted, inspired by a glimpse of his profile.... It was the face of the man who had climbed to the roof of the world, lived through ice and flame; it was sun-darkened, storm-bitten, gaunt from suffering under the irons of self-repression, mystical in its manifestation of a cosmos within. It was the face of an exile who has felt the hate of man, the absence of women, and the Presence of God. And it was whole, _whole_. He turned suddenly and saw the two standing together. There was something beautiful in his bewilderment, and in the expression of sadness which followed--since this was to be his last meeting with Routledge. A gesture, and the lowly ones were dismissed; and when the temple-court was empty, save for the Three--they joined hands. Whispering, he led them into the temple gardens at the edge of the lake. The water was glorified in the sunset, and by the stones of his doorway the drowsy lilies drank the last rays. Magicians of ancient and wondrous patience had conserved the verdure and mastered the flowerings. There were none but flawless leaves and none but classic blooms. The pebbles on the shore had been touched into mosaics, and the vines which fixed the coolness in the stones of his dwelling had seemingly been guided into perfection by fingers in the night. Out of love his people served him; out of love they had charmed a fountain from the ground near his doorway; placed sounding-shells to lure music from the dropping water, and forced Emperor roses lavishly to arise and shelter and perfume his bathing-place. “All these things my people have done for me, blessed friends,” Rawder said, “and all I asked when I came was to share a hut with the least of them.” At the arbored doorway, he stepped aside and bowed their entrance. Far within a figure moved to and fro without a sound.