"... We are one. We will go on. There is no end.... I thought I was a terrible woman out in the world. But I was only a little girl looking for her true companion.... I came to him and he knew. We are mated and he is putting me to sleep.... It is deep, deep sleep, and he will be with me. Yet I almost hate to go. Beloved—your head a moment on my breast. I know only love.... Ah, closer to me.... He will not mind.... He, too, is searching for his own—" It was her theme. Nifton Bend did not arise from his cushion at her knees. With his free hand, he drew a purse and a pistol and a packet of bank-notes from his coat, and then he spoke: "You will go now. You will rush forth into the hall as one maddened by pain. You see, I use your plan. They have seen me. I think you will be able to reach the street. Inasmuch as you are stricken, they will call their work done. But do not let a servant approach you. Be wary in the street, should they care to follow. The papers must be dropped into the sea—and then you have finished.... Use the pistol in the hall if necessary—all the chambers. But I think if they see the end upon you, they will let you die outside." The free hand was raised to Romney, who bowed to his knee before the man and woman. "You mean beauty and manhood to me—you precious two," he whispered. "The packets shall be sunk as you say. I have been proud to serve you both. Always I shall feel you above and beyond." "Ah, America—so often you bring her home to my heart. Godspeed to you, Romney. All is well with us. All is better than the best we could know or ask for.... We will be alone together. We shall have silence here.... Yes, that is well. Toss the yellow rug about us. Now we shall know the deeper dreaming." *PART FIVE: CONCLUSION* *THE HILL-COUNTRY* *1* With his hand on the knob of the door, Romney looked back. The whole hour he reviewed in a rush. He had not been heroic, nor even uncommon. His story had been stammered. There had been nothing to tell such a pair, lost in each other. Even the cause of China seemed little and unsubstantial compared to the splendour of their relation. The courage of Nifton Bend should always mean the arrival of man to manhood in Romney’s thoughts. The far roving spirit of the quest-woman come at last to the home-nest of a great man’s heart was a sort of pattern for the world’s romance.... She who had been the ruling imperious mistress of a few flashing days of his own life, was a child, utterly feminine and receptive in the presence of the greater force.