Then a most wonderful thing happened. The two had reached the shade of the wood surrounding Tremore, and had halted on its verge in a spot where the sunlight could not penetrate. But as Alice stared at the golden heart it blazed as a star with a far more brilliant light than any she had ever seen before. In a flash of thought she knew that her interior senses had been opened by the mightiest influence on earth. She was looking through the sheath of metal at the very Host itself in its supernal aspect, radiant, glorious, wonderful, holy. "Oh!" she breathed in a hushed voice and bowed her head reverently. "What is it?" asked her lover in surprise, for her expression was angelic. "Do you not see the light that is brighter than the sun?" "No," he whispered nervously, and seized her hand, like a child seeking for the comfort of a mother's touch. "Where is the light?" "It is gone now." Alice passed her disengaged hand across her brow. "It disappeared when you touched me. When you held up that heart it shone like a marvellous star of splendour." Then Montrose understood. "You have seen the Power itself," he murmured, and with trembling hands restored the reliquary to his breast. For the moment what Alice had seen shook him to the core of his being. "How glorious to be able to see through the veil even for a single moment. But why should you not when it is said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God'?" Like children they clung to one another on the borders of that dark wood, and it was some time before they could proceed. The sacred light they felt was yet around them, and would act as a shield against all evil. That it did so far as Alice was concerned was certain, for while walking under the yews amidst the heavy darkness, her sense of protection was unusually strong. Not so Montrose, for even though he carried the reliquary, he was less sensitive to its helpful influence than the girl who was more attuned to spirituality. It might be that with him the preponderance of earthly desires placed him more in touch with the lower planes than with the higher, but undoubtedly he felt strongly the tremendous pressure of the evil around him. And when the two halted on the verge of the beaten ground, barren of herb and flower, the house of hate bulked largely, silent, black, brooding and menacing. "Alice, how can you live here?" demanded Montrose, grasping her hand tightly. "You feel it also?" she whispered, "that sense of doom and dread?" "I feel the power that rends and tears and parts asunder: the disintegrating force of Chaos, which is necessary for creation before Cosmos--the Cosmos of Love can be formed!" and unconsciously he gripped her hand with crushing force, so great was the emotion which stirred him. "Douglas, you hurt me," cried the girl, writhing.