and on, and mingled its song with the sea's song for ever.'"

The stranger was silent for a while.

Then he said, "Should he answer you and say, 'What do I care! What are
coves and mountain tops to me? Gold is real, and the power to crush men
within my hand'; tell him no further.

"But if by some chance he should listen, then, say this one thing to him,
clearly in the ear, that he may not fail to hear it: 'The morning may
break grey, and the midday be dark and stormy; but the glory of the
evening's sunset may wash out for ever the remembrance of the morning's
dullness, and the darkness of the noon. So that all men shall say, 'Ah,
for the beauty of that day!'--For the stream that has once descended there
is no path upwards.--It is never too late for the soul of a man.'

"And if he should laugh, and say: 'You fool, a man may remake himself
entirely before twenty; he may reshape himself before thirty; but after
forty he is fixed. Shall I, who for forty-three years have sought money
and power, seek for anything else now? You want me to be Jesus Christ, I
suppose! How can I be myself and another man?' Then answer him: 'Deep in
the heart of every son of man lies an angel; but some have their wings
folded. Wake yours! He is larger and stronger than another man's; mount
up with him!'

"But if he curses you, and says, 'I have eight millions of money, and I
care neither for God nor man!'--then make no answer, but stoop and write
before him." The stranger bent down and wrote with his finger in the white
ashes of the fire. Peter Halket bent forward, and he saw the two words the
stranger had written.