In this haunting presence the triumph of distance accomplished, the delicious sense of known worlds waiting far below, world behind world in a chain whose end was the far-off London she represented here in this high remoteness, could not perfectly flourish, came in full only when the silence had had time to fill itself with joy that was too strong to be oppressed by the departed ancient voice that was like the echo of a sound falling elsewhere. * * * * * Again, recalling the far-off morning, a dark barn-like room. But the woman opened a door at the end of it, led the way through a passage still darker: another door and she was out upon the edge of the world, upon a dilapidated little grey balcony jutting over an abyss. As far as sight could reach were sunlit mountain tops range beyond range till they grew far and faint. Faced alone, the scene, after the first moment’s blissfully ranging perception, was saddened in its grandeur through the absence there of someone else perceiving. Thousands, of course, had seen it from this perch in the centre of the row of slummy little balconies. But so splendid was the triumph of the unexpected mountains ranged and lit that no company, even exclamatory, could break their onslaught. Alone, there was too heavy a burden of feeling in the speechless company of this suddenly revealed magnificence. The woman coming out with the tea that one day she must take here accompanied, was brisk about the view: an adjunct, thrown in gratis with her refreshments which were good and which presently caused the mountains, turned away from, to be felt preparing a friendliness; becoming the last, best reward of her day’s accomplishments. The way home down and down and across the levels to the rink and up the little homely slope into Oberland would be a jog-trot taken half asleep to the haven of things small and known amidst which she would sit renewed, to-day’s long life-time stilled to a happy throbbing of the nerves, a bemused beaming in the midst of friends. Its incidents blurred that would come back one day clearer, more shining than all the rest? Warned by a growing chill she turned to face the mountains in farewell and found them lit by the first of the afterglow. Far away in the haze beyond the visible distance a group of slender peaks showed faintly, rose-misted pinnacles of a dream-city from whose spires would presently gleam the rubies of farewell. CHAPTER VI The solitary excursion had made a gap in the sequence of days. Those standing behind it were now far away, and yesterday had failed to bridge the gap and join itself to their serenity. To-day looked shallow and hurried, with short hours beyond it rushing ahead to pause in the sunlight of the ski-fest and then to fly, helter-skelter towards the end.