I shook my head, gave a last look at O'Keefe; there was nothing I could do; I stepped beside her. She thrust a white arm into mine protectingly, the wonderfully moulded hand with its long, tapering fingers catching about my wrist; my heart glowed toward her. "Your medicine is potent, handmaiden," I answered. "And the touch of your hand would give me strength enough, even had I not drunk it," I added in Larry's best manner. Her eyes danced, trouble flying. "Now, that was well spoken for such a man of wisdom as Rador tells me you are," she laughed; and a little pang shot through me. Could not a lover of science present a compliment without it always seeming to be as unusual as plucking a damask rose from a cabinet of fossils? Mustering my philosophy, I smiled back at her. Again I noted that broad, classic brow, with the little tendrils of shining bronze caressing it, the tilted, delicate, nut-brown brows that gave a curious touch of innocent _diablerie_ to the lovely face--flowerlike, pure, high-bred, a touch of roguishness, subtly alluring, sparkling over the maiden Madonnaness that lay ever like a delicate, luminous suggestion beneath it; the long, black, curling lashes--the tender, rounded, bare left breast-- "I have always liked you," she murmured naively, "since first I saw you in that place where the Shining One goes forth into your world. And I am glad you like my medicine as well as that you carry in the black box that you left behind," she added swiftly. "How know you of that, Lakla?" I gasped. "Oft and oft I came to him there, and to you, while you lay sleeping. How call you _him_?" She paused. "Larry!" I said. "Larry!" she repeated it excellently. "And you?" "Goodwin," said Rador. I bowed quite as though I were being introduced to some charming young lady met in that old life now seemingly aeons removed. "Yes--Goodwin." she said. "Oft and oft I came. Sometimes I thought you saw me. And _he_--did he not dream of me sometime--?" she asked wistfully. "He did." I said, "and watched for you." Then amazement grew vocal. "But how came you?" I asked. "By a strange road," she whispered, "to see that all was well with _him_--and to look into his heart; for I feared Yolara and her beauty. But I saw that she was not in his heart." A blush burned over her, turning even the little bare breast rosy. "It is a strange road," she went on hurriedly. "Many times have I followed it and watched the Shining One bear back its prey to the blue pool; seen the woman _he_ seeks"--she made a quick gesture toward Olaf--"and a babe cast from her arms in the last pang of her mother love; seen another woman throw herself into the Shining One's embrace to save a man she loved; and I could not help!" Her voice grew deep, thrilled. "The friend, it comes to me, who drew you here, Goodwin!"