The silence was soon broken by the return of the Rabban, who resumed the conversation that had been interrupted. But he little dreamed what a tension was upon the two young souls.
Serenus soon took his leave, passed out of the palace, and started down the northerly descent of Mount Zion in the direction of his quiet home, which was some distance to the north-west, beyond Hezekiah's Pool. But before he had come to the end of the sloping palace gardens, he saw some deserted seats among the scattered shrubbery upon one of the terraces, and attracted by the balminess of the evening, sat down. The opportunity for silent meditation and composure after the trying ordeal through which he had passed was very welcome. He would take his bearings anew, and sound the subtle recesses of his sorrows and experiences, and confirm and re- interpret his hopes and aspirations. At length he looked up into the starry canopy above, and entered into communion with the Universal, and his fevered pulse grew calm. He relaxed the soul-tension which had been upon him, and consciously opened his being to the eternal and all- prevailing Love and Goodness, and peace, like a river, flowed in. He was conscious of an universal reconciliation with all things, past, present, and future. The unbounded benediction which overwhelmed him submerged all that had been local, temporary, and disquieting. His soul expanded, and he was conscious of an at-one-ment with the whole order of Nature. It was all in, of, and for him. What, after all, was the sweetness of the purest and most beautiful personal affection but a rudimentary lesson, a detached gleam, from the wide radiance of the unbounded sunlight! His love for Amabel was like a little purling rill, finding its way to the ocean, not to be destroyed, but enfolded in an infinitely Greater. It must become multiplied, until Amabel is in all people, Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian. If her form be no more beheld, she shall be an universal interpreter. She is everywhere, even though unseen. Pierce through the rough outer coverings of all souls, and the divine germ of Love is there, only waiting for the light and moisture of consciousness so that it may swell and spring forth. Amabel is in the whispering of the breeze, the glow of the sunlight, the shimmer of the wave, the sighing of the forest, and the patter of the rain-drop. Divine Love at first can be interpreted only through its personified sample, which kindles the beginning of a flame in the human soul.