old alluding decently to the domesticated gods. They never knew--
at least Stransom never knew--how they had learned to be sure about
each other. If it had been with each a question of what the other
was there for, the certitude had come in some fine way of its own.
Any faith, after all, has the instinct of propagation, and it was
as natural as it was beautiful that they should have taken pleasure
on the spot in the imagination of a following. If the following
was for each but a following of one it had proved in the event
sufficient. Her debt, however, of course was much greater than
his, because while she had only given him a worshipper he had given
her a splendid temple. Once she said she pitied him for the length
of his list--she had counted his candles almost as often as
himself--and this made him wonder what could have been the length
of hers. He had wondered before at the coincidence of their
losses, especially as from time to time a new candle was set up.
On some occasion some accident led him to express this curiosity,
and she answered as if in surprise that he hadn't already
understood. "Oh for me, you know, the more there are the better--
there could never be too many. I should like hundreds and
hundreds--I should like thousands; I should like a great mountain
of light."

Then of course in a flash he understood. "Your Dead are only One?"

She hung back at this as never yet. "Only One," she answered,
colouring as if now he knew her guarded secret. It really made him
feel he knew less than before, so difficult was it for him to
reconstitute a life in which a single experience had so belittled
all others. His own life, round its central hollow, had been
packed close enough. After this she appeared to have regretted her