Ellinor told herself, with a mingling of regret and pride, that since her soul had received the message of his star she understood David’s vocation. And, however much she might wish in the coming days to draw him back to the homely things of earth, she could never be of those now who mocked or pitied. A little later they stood upon the open platform together, and he pointed out to her the exact place of the marvel that had just been revealed to her. Again he spoke words of little meaning to her, yet fraught it seemed in their strangeness with deeper significance than those of a familiar language; but as she listened it was upon his transfigured countenance that all her wonder hung. “See you, there, by Alphecca. Nay, you are looking at Vega of the Lyre-Vega the beautiful she is called: no wonder she draws your eyes! But lower them, Ellinor, and look a shade to the right. Turn to Corona, the Northern Crown.” With the abstraction of the enthusiast, he was quite unconscious that to her uninitiated ear the names could convey no sense, that to her uninitiated eye the aspect of the sky could show nothing abnormal. “See, there, just to the right of Alphecca—oh, you see, surely, the most beautiful—my star, virgin to man, to the sight of this earth until to-night!” Still as he looked upward, she looked at him. The wind was blustering. The breath of the northwest had swept the heavens clear before bringing up its own phalanx of cloud and rain. The complaint of the great woods, far below their feet, rose about them; the thousand small voices of moving leaf and branch swelling like the murmur of a crowd into one pervading sound. Ellinor felt as if these voices of the earth were claiming her while the astronomer’s ears were deaf. Whilst they had remained within the observatory she had shared for a moment some of his own exaltation, heard the mysteries speaking to him, felt as if each star that struck her vision was in direct and personal communication with herself. But, once in the open air, as she leant over the parapet, this sense fell away from her. The heavens were chillingly remote, and remote was the spirit of their high priest and worshipper. Indeed he was gradually becoming oblivious of her presence. After a prolonged silence she slipped out of his cloak and quietly placed it upon his own shoulders. He gathered the folds around him, crossed his arms with the gesture of the man who suffices to himself—all unconsciously, without even turning his eyes from their far-off contemplation. And so she stole away from him—and sought her father once more. But finding him peacefully asleep in his high armchair, by a well-heaped fire and with the dumb _famulus_ in attendance, she made her way through the deserted, silent house towards her own quarters, a little saddened in her heart, and yet happy. A home-coming strange indeed, but strangely sweet.