“It is true—it is true. And it is because I bear this hope in my bosom that it pierces me like a sword to see your calm averted eyes and know you far away in that strange heaven where I cannot follow. O, my lord, if it be true that you have alien kindred I cannot reach, let your son be of them. Give him all good!” Then stooping, he drew her head to his breast and put his arm about her and drew her gently until she sat upon his left knee—that throne of the Indian wife, and thus they remained awhile in silence, and his touch was better than speech and his quiet healing as moonlight. Nor did she miss words of love or rejoicing for his calm folded her in the very wings of peace. At long last he spoke: “My Pearl of Perfectness, we two are one, and of our true oneness springs this new delight. To me the hope is sweeter than all harps touched in the hollow of Heaven, and if you were dear to me before, judge how dear now. But since we are so one, come nearer, share my thought as well as my heart. Does it content you that we should bring into our prison another prisoner and one so dear? Here the days slip by uncounted—a chain of fadeless flowers. Here the river links its long silver thought for ever and ever down the channel from the peaks. Here the bright birds flash by eternally. Will they people the garden to overflowing with their beauty or do they fly away to freer lands as I would if I could? When this garden is full of our children and theirs, what then? Am I the only prisoner or they also? _What_ is the secret my father holds from me?” But she, trembling, could answer nothing. And again there was silence and only the bright slow dropping of the little spring, and her heart forboded sorrow. “O day of joy made bitter with fear!” it said within her. And again he fell into deep cold meditation, and forgot her utterly and his arm relaxed and slipping fell beside him, and she crept from his knee, and he did not know, staring with lost eyes toward the stainless heavens. And for awhile she stood and watched unnoticed, and then crept shuddering away. And beneath the shade of the neem Siddhartha sat motionless until the rays from the low sun struck high up the tree trunks, and sunset followed, a breath of rose on a rainbow sky, and presently the moon rose unclouded in luminous loveliness and floated to the zenith, and all boughs dropped dew, and the mountains were lost in stars. Nor did any dare to break his dream. CHAPTER IV THUS have I heard.