Now here was an extraordinary stillness as though an arresting finger were laid upon the pulse of life, but not wholly silencing it, for from a fern-fringed spring there fell at regular intervals a bright drop of water marking time into divisions lest it should wholly slip into Eternity and be lost. And the shade within was deep and green making a soft dusk at noon, and through the shade could be seen the great spires of silver mountains ecstatic in blue air and resembling the highest reach of the aspiration of man arrested on the verge of comprehension. Very still in green shade sat the son of the Maharaja, his hands, palm upward, laid empty upon his knees, his eyes fixed on the everlasting hills, neither joy nor trouble upon calm brows, lost in meditation so deep that it walled him as in crystal from the fair shows around, and her coming was nothing to him for he neither saw nor heard it. Then a wave of anguish rose in her bosom and swelled until it spilt in salt and bitter water from her eyes, and she could not restrain herself from that forbidden show of sorrow and putting aside the boughs she ran to him and fell at his knees and laid her head upon them, sobbing. And with a long sigh he awoke and looked down upon her, smiling. “What is it, wife, and why do your eyes run like Rohini. Is it a new gladness beyond gladness? And why are you so glad?” Weeping and sobbing she hid her fair face upon his knees, clasping them passionately, her words stumbling from her lips in agony. “It is not gladness, O heart of my heart. It is grief.” And he, from the inward Kingdom of Calm. “And what is grief, my lotus flower?” For in all his life he had neither heard the word nor seen the thing and she spoke an unknown language. And as she sobbed on, he lifted her face gently in his two hands and looked at her closed eyelids, the lashes wet and matted on her cheek with running tears, she pale as death, the rich colour dead in her lips, and on his beautiful face was amazement and no more, for how could he pity who had lived only in the presence of joy? And at last he said very slowly as if bewildered: “My rose, my delight, what is this new thing, and what have you to tell me? Speak that I may rejoice also.” And his words stung some terror in her because he could not understand and it seemed that she must bear the burden of grief and the hidden secret of the world’s woe not only for him and herself, but for all the earth. For from any creature born human, though young and beautiful and a Prince, it may well seem a daring too great for mortals to deny grief and affront sorrow and to shut the door in their grey faces—knowing them waiting and watching outside. So the words broke from her sobbing lips: