Blue skies shone above me when I paid my last tribute to the Valley of Sobul. In the white breast of the new-fallen snow, a deep brown furrow had been riven; and into this aperture, with hands that trembled and threatened to give way, I lifted the rough-hewn oaken chest that contained the sole earthly remains of her who had loved me. Very carefully I had smoothed out the flowing auburn locks; very tenderly I had sheared off a tress, which even now is with me; then, with a tearless regret bitterer than words shall ever describe, I had looked my last at that silent, tranquil face, had slipped a scented pine twig impulsively against the unmoving form, and slowly had drawn the oaken lid into place.... And now, beneath the bright beams of the sun, under the circle of the inexorable peaks, I felt my eyes flooded with a passion that at the same time brought relief; and as the first clod slipped above the casket, it seemed to me (or perhaps it was but my disordered fancy speaking) that I heard a bird singing, singing faintly a thin elfin song, a strange, trilling song such as I had heard long before when Yasma had come to me after the bleak winter.... But no bird was to be seen, although I looked for one wistfully. And no bird was to be seen, although I fancied I heard one, at that later time when I stood bent beneath my pack on the flank of a western mountain, gazing back at the solitary valley and the white-draped figure of Yulada, aloof and invincible as ever. Before me was the trail that led toward the natives I had chanced upon last summer; before me, after months of waiting, would be the open road to my own land and civilization; before me would be the beginning of a new life, and new interests that would bring consolation, and work that would bring forgetfulness; but here in this secluded vale, with its lonely woods and encompassing peaks, I had left that which not all the golden cities of the earth could ever give me back again. _THE END_