As the faintest murmur in a shell we heard him whisper, _Life! Life! Life!_ Then, as a blown vapour, he was one with us. A singular change came upon the clay which had once been so near and dear to us: a frozen whiteness that had not been there before, a stillness as of ancient marble. The Will stood, appalled, with wild eyes. Some dreadful invisible power was upon him. "Lost!" he cried; and now his voice, too, was faint as a murmur in a shell. But the Soul smiled. Then the Will grew grey as a willow-leaf aslant in the wind; and as the shadow of a reed wavered in the wind; and as a reed's shadow is and is not, so was he suddenly no more. But, in the miracle of a moment, the Soul appeared in the triple mystery of substance, and mind, and spirit. In full and joyous life the Will stood re-born, and now we three were one again. I looked for the last time on that which had been our home. The lifeless thing lay, most terribly still and strange; yet with a dignity that came as a benediction, for this dead temple of life had yielded to a divine law, allied not to shadow and decay, but to the recurrent spring, to the eternal ebb and flow, to the infinite processional. It is we of the human clan only who are troubled by the vast waste and refuse of life. There is not any such waste, neither in the myriad spawn nor the myriad seed: a Spirit sows by the law we do not see, and reaps by a law we do not know. Then I turned and went to the western window. I saw that the Inn stood upon the Hills of Dream, yet, when I looked within, I knew that I was again in my familiar home. Once more, beyond the fuchsia bushes, the sea sighed, as it felt the long shore with a continuous foamless wave. In the little room below, the lamp was lit; for the glow fell warmly upon the gravel path, shell-bordered, and upon the tufted mignonette, sea-pinks, and feathery southernwood. The sound of hushed voices rose. And now the dawn is come, and I have written this record of what we, who are now indeed one, but far more truly and intimately than before, went out to seek. In another hour I shall go hence, a wayfarer again. I have a long road to travel, but am sustained by joy, and uplifted by a great hope. When, tired, I lay down the pen, and with it the last of mortal uses, it will be to face the glory of a new day. I have no fear. I shall not leave all I have loved, for I have that in me which binds me to this beautiful world, for another life at least, it may be for many lives. And that within me which dreamed and hoped shall now more gladly and wonderfully dream, and hope, and seek, and know, and see ever deeper and further into the mystery of beauty and truth. And that within me which _knew_, now _knows_. In the deepest sense there is no spiritual dream that is not true, no hope that shall for ever go famished, no tears that shall not be gathered into the brooding skies of compassion, to fall again in healing dews.