Not many days later, when the green valley of Olympia was wrapped in the peace of a sunlit afternoon, and a faint breeze drew from the pine trees on the hills of Kronos a murmur as of distant voices whispering the message of Eternity, the keeper of the house of the Hermes was disturbed in a profound reverie by the sound of slow footfalls not far from his dwelling. He stirred, lifted his head and stared vaguely about him. No travelers had come of late to the shrine he guarded. Hermes had been alone with the child upon his arm, dreaming of its unclouded future with the serenity of one who had trodden the paths where the gods walk, and who could rise at will above the shadowed ways along which men creep in anxiety, dreading false steps and the luring dangers of their fates. Hermes had been alone with his happy burden, forgotten surely by the world which his delicate majesty ignored without disdain. But now pilgrims, perhaps from a distant land, were drawing near to look upon him, to spend a little while in the atmosphere of his shining calm, perhaps to learn something of the message he had to give to those who were capable of receiving it.

A man and a woman, moving slowly side by side, came into the patch of strong sunshine which made a glory before the house, paused there and stood still.

From the shadow in which he was sitting the guardian examined them with the keen eyes of one who had looked upon travelers of many nations. He knew at once that the woman was English. As for the man—yes, probably he was English too, Dark, lean, wrinkled, he was no doubt an Englishman who had been much away from his own country, which the guardian conceived of as wrapped in perpetual fogs and washed by everlasting rains.

The guardian stared hard at this man, then turned his bright eyes again upon the woman. As he looked at her some recollection began to stir in his mind.

Not many travelers came twice to the green recesses of Elis. He was accustomed to brief acquaintanceships, closed by small gifts of money, and succeeded by farewells which troubled his spirit not at all. But this woman seemed familiar to him; and even the man——

He got up from his seat and went towards them.

As he came into the sunlight the woman saw him and smiled. And, when she smiled, he knew he had seen her before. The deep gravity of her face as she approached had nearly tricked his memory, but now he remembered all about her. She was the beautiful fair Englishwoman who had camped on the hill of Drouva not so many years ago, who had gone out shooting with that young rascal, Dirmikis, and who had spent solitary hours wrapt in contemplation of the statue whose fame doubtless had brought her to Elis.

Not so many years ago! But was this the man the husband who had been with her then, and who had evidently been deeply in love with her?

It seemed to the guardian that there was some puzzling change in the beautiful woman. As to the man——Still wondering, the guardian took off his cap politely and uttered a smiling welcome in Greek. Then the man smiled too, faintly, and still preserving the under-look of deep gravity, and the guardian knew him. It was indeed the husband, but grown to look very much older, and different in some almost mysterious way.

The woman made a gesture towards the museum. The guardian bowed, turned and moved to lead the way through the vestibule into the great room of the Victory. But the woman spoke behind him and he paused. He did not understand what she said, but the sound of her voice seemed to plead with him—or to command him. He looked at her and understood.

She was gazing at him steadily, and her eyes told him not to go before her, told him to stay where he was.

He nodded his head, slightly pursing his small mouth. She knew the way of course. How should she not know it?

Gently she came up to him and just touched his coat sleeve—to thank him. Then she went on slowly with her companion, traversed the room of the Victory, looking neither to right nor left, crossed the threshold of the smaller chamber beyond it and disappeared.

For a moment the guardian stood at gaze. Then he went back to his seat, sat down and sighed. A faint sense of awe had come upon him. He did not understand it, and he sighed again. Then, pulling himself together, he felt for a cigarette, lit it and began to smoke, staring at the patch of sunlight outside, and at the olive tree which grew close to the doorway.

Within the chamber of the Hermes for a long time there was silence. Rosamund was sitting before the statue. Dion stood near to her, but not close to her. The eyes of both of them were fixed upon Hermes and the child. Once again they were greeted by the strange and exquisite hush which seems, like a divine sentinel, to wait at the threshold of that shrine in Elis; once again the silence seemed to come out of the marble and to press softly against their two hearts. But they were changed, and so the great peace of the Hermes seemed to them subtly changed. They knew now the full meaning of torment—torment of the body and of the soul. They knew the blackness of rebellion. But they knew also, or at least were beginning to know, the true essence of peace. And this beginning of knowledge drew them nearer to the Hermes than they had been in the bygone years, than they had ever been before the coming of little Robin into their lives, and before Robin had left them, obedient to the call from beyond.

The olive branch was gone from the doorway. Something beautiful was missing from the picture of Elis which had reminded Rosamund of the glimpse of distant country in Raphael’s “Marriage of the Virgin.” And they longed to have it there, that little olive branch—ah, how they longed! There was pain in their hearts. But there was no longer the cruel fierceness of rebellion. They were able to gaze at the child on whom Hermes was gazing, if not with his celestial serenity yet with a resignation that was even subtly mingled with something akin to gratitude.

“Shall we reach that goal and take a child with us?”

Long ago that had been Dion’s thought in Elis. And long ago Rosamund had broken the silence within that room by the words:

“I’m trying to learn something here, how to bring him up if he ever comes.”

And now God had given them a child, and God had taken him from them. Robin had gone from all that was not intended, but that, for some inscrutable reason, had come to be. Robin was in the released world.

As the twilight began to fall another twilight came back flooding with its green dimness the memories of them both. And at last Rosamund spoke.

“Dion!”

“Yes.”

“Come a little nearer to me.”

He came close to her and stood beside her.

“Do you remember something you said to me here? It was in the twilight——”

She paused. Tears had come into her eyes and her voice had trembled.

“It was in the twilight. You said that it seemed to you as if Hermes were taking the child away, partly because of us.”

Her voice broke.

“I—I disliked your saying that. I told you I couldn’t feel that.”

“I remember.”

“And then you explained exactly what you meant. And we spoke of the human fear that comes to those who look at a child they love and think, ‘what is life going to do to the child?’ This evening I want to tell you that in a strange way I am able to be glad that Robin has gone, glad with some part of me that is more mother than anything else in me, I think. Robin is—is so safe now.”

The tears came thickly and fell upon her face. She put out a hand to Dion. He clasped it closely.

“God took him away, and perhaps because of us. I think it may have been to teach us, you and me. Perhaps we needed a great sorrow. Perhaps nothing else could have taught us something we had to learn.”

“It may be so,” he almost whispered.

She got up and leaned against his shoulder.

“Whatever happens to me in the future,” she said, “I don’t think I shall ever distrust God again.”

He put his arm round her and, for the first time since their reunion, he kissed her, and she returned his kiss.

Over Elis the twilight was falling, a green twilight, sylvan and very ethereal, tremulous in its delicate beauty. It stole through the green doors, and down through the murmuring pine trees. The sheep-bells were ringing softly; the flocks were going homeward from pasture; and the chime of their little bells mingled with the wide whispering of the eternities among the summits of the pine trees. Music of earth mingled with the music from a distance that knew what the twilight knew.

Presently the two marble figures in the chamber of the Hermes began to fade away gradually, as if deliberately withdrawing themselves from the gaze of men. At last only their outlines were visible to Rosamund and to Dion. But even these told of the Golden Age, of the age of long peace.

“FAREWELL!”

Some one had said it within that chamber, and a second voice had echoed it.

As the guardian of the Hermes watched the two pilgrims walking slowly away down the valley he noticed that the man’s right arm clasped the woman’s waist. And, so, they passed from his sight and were taken by the green twilight of Elis.