And Isabel, the lost thing for which he was searching, what was she, and to which Self did she belong--the real or the phantom Self? Was she the creation of his higher or his lower desires? And if he was to find her, as now he felt a growing certainty that he must, what would she be? Into what form would the splendour of her last moment have transferred her? And now he began to remember more vividly the old man’s warning. With what peril of agony and disappointment was fraught his quest, its realization and attainment? By the attainment of one’s keenest desire comes that anguish of disappointment which is fierce in proportion to the fierceness of the desires that called it into being. Desire, by satisfying itself, begets desire, and so, with each fresh craving and its gratification, the chain of suffering grows heavier and stronger, binding the soul more and more fast prisoner in the bondage of pain. For a moment he saw this clearly, understood that only in freedom from the hungers of the lower self can spring that freedom from sorrow which is the ultimate end of all human ambition, the goal of all humanity’s highest hopes, here and in the hereafter. Then his vision clouded, and the lower self intruded its presence once more. His mind dwelt on the achievement of his quest, the long-delayed reunion with the thing that had been lost. Even had he willed to escape, he remembered now that in a moment of what had then been mere fantasy he had plighted his troth to Isabel far down the future. Now, though she might perhaps be free, he was tightly bound--at once by his pledge as by his desires. Perhaps, in so far as his desires had forcibly purged themselves from grossness, the grossness of his bondage might be softened. But a slave he needs must be to the craving which he had so fomented by indulgence through so many desirous years. A dim fear began to fall like a veil across the radiance of his anticipation. Now he understood that reunion with Isabel could not be quite what he had thought and longed for. There must be some change, and with that change must come suffering. He had said, in the ardour of his desideration, that he would take all risks of sorrow. Now he first felt that the risks might well be heavy, and the sorrow sooner or later inevitable. A sense of foreboding filled him. What he wanted that he should have, and with his satisfaction must come that grief of dust and ashes which always makes the gratification of one desire the prelude of its yet bitterer successor, even as the drunkard’s satisfaction of his craving only means the renewal of a redoubled, more insatiable craving on the morrow. His desire should achieve its end, and with that achievement find only the beginning of another desire and a keener pain. A vague, mysterious fear of the path which he had set himself to tread now dominated all his thoughts. It had seemed to lead into such bright places. But now shadows lay thick across it, and its way