The cottage was in the shadow now. Looking up the slope he could see a clump of trees still glittering as though prepared for a festival above the rising flood of darkness. And at the head of the valley, like an immense precious stone, glowing with its own inward fire, the limestone crags reached up through the clouds into the pale sky. Perhaps he had been a fool, thought Calamy. But looking at that shining peak, he was somehow reassured. THE END ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transcriber’s Notes This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. Some inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been retained. Itemized changes from the original text: • p. 9: changed “Princess” to “Princes” (Princes of Massa and Carrara, Dukes of Vezza) • p. 45: removed comma between “that” and “against” (reaction, like that against the) • p. 78: changed “that” to “than” (that’s easier said than done) • p. 85: changed “Mrs” to “Mrs.” (Mrs. Aldwinkle smiled) • p. 106: changed “called” to “calling” (a being calling himself Homo Sapiens) • p. 110: changed “God’s” to “Gog’s” (Gog’s Court) • p. 110: changed “Himalayas” to “Himalayans” (Since Himalayans were made to breed true to colour) • p. 177: changed “flattered” to “flattened” (flattened domes of foliage) • p. 181: changed “you” to “your” (I’ve always ... admired your work) • p. 182: changed “intelligensia” to “intelligentsia” (the cosmos, the intelligentsia, love....) • p. 220: changed “Its” to “It’s” (It’s ‘amusing’—isn’t that the word?) • p. 227: changed period to question mark (Should we go on?) • p. 253: changed “Carden” to “Cardan” (Next morning Mr. Cardan was down early) • p. 309: changed “povery” to “poverty” (the abysses of unrelieved poverty) • p. 321: changed “Keat” to “Keate” (some new Busby or Keate) • p. 326: changed “Maremann” to “Maremman” (the Maremman road) Hyphenation was changed in some words for consistency: • p. 47: Changed “anal erotism” to “anal-erotism” to match five other occurrences • p. 85: Changed “straight-forward” to “straightforward” to match four other occurrences • p. 93: Changed “life-time” to “lifetime” to match three other occurrences • p. 300: Changed “hill-side” to “hillside” to match two other occurrences • p. 346: Changed “tip-toed” to “tiptoed” to match two other occurrences Inconsistent hyphenation was retained for the words: • “bed-chamber”/“bedchamber” • “finger-tips”/“finger tips” • “good-morning”/“good morning” • “grouse-shooting”/“grouse shooting” • “walking-stick”/“walking stick” New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.