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 —know that he must die, and feel no resentment. It is enough, she thought, to come in out of the void to enjoy the sun, the spring, the pleasure of existence and then to pull this bright earth over your head, sleep, and if you must—forget.

'This,' said Roger, indicating the florescent carpet on which they lay, 'is what Fra Angelico—blessed be his name—tried to paint. Did you ever dream of such millions of little flowers all in blossom at once? Could anything be more like the Paradise of the old hymns?'

But there seemed to be nothing more to say. Through the golden silence Lanice felt a miracle working within her like the quickening of a child. It was as if, through suffering and acceptance, Roger had reached a level where neither the vicissitudes of fortune nor the cruelty of man or nature could longer hurt him. If he could have put in words the wisdom he had learned, the young woman heaped beside him like a dropped flower would not have understood, but she could drink from his presence and feed on his inarticulate calm the spirit that Captain Jones had so rudely uprooted. The whole world, as she understood it, had fallen in ruins about her head. Here in this poised and now silent young man was the answer to all the questions she had ever asked of life. They were drawn together in closer bond than Jones's iron arms. The great traveller was after all but an external adventure. He had touched but the surface of her being. Roger enveloped her in a pale gold light. Nothing mattered, neither Hittie's disgrace and tragic death