The chalet was in darkness, and the door was locked, but through the uncurtained glass of the window, she was able to irradiate the emptiness of its interior.  Antony was not there.

But she noticed, with a shudder, that the space usually filled by the Image was vacant.  Then she understood, and with a hopeless sigh went down the wood again.

Already Antony and Silencieux had found the place where the loneliest land meets the loneliest sea.  Side by side they were sitting on a moonlit margin of the world, and Antony was singing low to the murmur of the waves:—­

  Hopeless of hope, past desire even of thee,
    There is one place I long for,
      A desolate place
    That I sing all my songs for,
    A desolate place for a desolate face,
  Where the loneliest land meets the loneliest sea.

  Green waves and green grasses—­and nought else is nigh,
    But a shadow that beckons;
      A desolate face,
    And a shadow that beckons
    The desolate face to the desolate place
  Where the loneliest sea meets the loneliest sky.

  Wide sea and wide heaven, and all else afar,
    But a spirit is singing,
      A desolate soul
    That is joyfully winging—­
    A desolate soul—­to that desolate goal
  Where the loneliest wave meets the loneliest star.

“It is not good,” said Silencieux.

“I know,” answered Antony.

“Throw it into the sea.”

“It is not worthy of the sea.”

“Burn it.”

“Fire is too august.”

“Throw it to the winds.”

“They are too busy.”

“Bury it.”

“It would make barren a whole meadow.”

“Forget it.”

“I will—­And you?”

“I will.”

And Antony and Silencieux laughed softly together by the sea.

Many days Antony and Silencieux stayed together by the sea.  They loved it together in all its changes, in sun and rain, in wild wind and dreamy calm; at morning when it shone like a spirit, at evening when it flickered like a ghost, at noon when it lay asleep curled up like a woman in the arms of the land.  Sometimes at evening they sat in the little fishing harbour, watching the incoming boats, till the sky grew sad with rigging and old men’s faces.

Then at last Silencieux said:  “I am weary of the sea.  Let us go to the town—­to the lights and the sad cries of the human waves.”

So they went to the town and found a room high up, where they sat at the window and watched the human lights, and listened to the human music.

Never had it been so wonderful to be together.

For a week Antony lived in heaven.  Never had Silencieux been so kind, so close to him.

“Let us be little children,” he said.  “Let us do anything that comes into our heads.”

So they ran in and out among pleasures together, joined strange dances and sang strange songs.  They clapped their hands to jugglers and acrobats, and animals tortured into talent.  And sometimes, as the gaudy theatre resounded about them, they looked so still at each other that all the rest faded away, and they were left alone with each other’s eyes and great thoughts of God.