“Ah, child,” he went on, “you are indeed the handiwork of God and, as Plato says, I do pass through you to something more.”
As he spoke the vision of the child seemed to shape itself before his eyes. Her little feet were bare as when he saw her first and she was stretching out her beautiful arms toward him. Her face shone with a strange light and then gradually he felt himself lifted up and the vision changed, becoming more ethereal and more beautiful, till his heart stood still. It was no longer a child, it was no longer even human beauty at all. It was altogether transcendent.
He rose slowly and then knelt down. “Now I know,” he said, “this is the heart’s adoration, this is worship. I never knew before.” He bowed down utterly humbled and yet at the same time exalted and a voice seemed to say,--“I am that I am.” He felt as one who is purified as in a fire and then gradually a sense of peace stole over him.
He knelt there in a rapture for a long time until at length the vision faded slowly away. But he realised that in some strange fashion new strength had been given to him and that the temptations of life were shrinking into littleness.
Meanwhile Aline and Audry made their way along the passage. It was daylight so they felt that their light would not be seen. When they got to the end they could hear perfectly and even see a little bit through a tiny crack. They saw Edward, the seneschal, come in and take out the great salt and the nef and then he carefully fastened the door. After a while he came back and fetched some of the other things.
When the children returned to Ian, they both exclaimed,--“Oh, you are looking so much better.”
For a moment he did not speak; he was watching Aline as she unconsciously glided down the room with a sort of dancing step, humming a tune and slowly waving her arms. She seemed filled with a new sacredness, a new unapproachable otherworldliness; it was an apotheosis of childhood.
“Well, you have come back to me,” he said at length. “What did you discover?”
“Not a great deal,” Aline answered, “but we can see through a chink and we may some day see the thief himself.”
“I am afraid that we shall never catch him,” said Audry, “and what is the use of troubling about it? The thing is gone now and what is done is done.”