"This road," she said, after a little time of rapid walking, "leads
right up to the end of the world, doesn't it? See, it ends squarely in
the sun." They stopped where the turn had opened to the west a long
vista of grey and purple hills far and high. They stood on a ridge of
broken quartz and gneiss, thrown up in a bygone age. To their left a
few dwarf Scotch firs threw shadows back toward the town. The ball of
red fire in the west was half below the rim of the distant peak.

"Stand so,"--she spoke in a slightly hushed tone that moved him a step
nearer almost to touch her arm,--"and feel the round little earth
turning with us. We always think the sun drops down away from us, but
it stays still. Now remember your astronomy and feel the earth turn.
See--you can actually _see_ it move--whirling along like a child's ball
because it can't help itself, and then there's the other motion around
the sun, and the other, the rushing of everything through space, and
who knows how many others, and yet we plan our futures and think we
shall do finely this way or that, and always forget that we're taken
along in spite of ourselves. Sometimes I think I shall give up trying;
and then I see later that even that feeling was one of the unknown
motions that I couldn't control. The only thing we know is that we are
moved in spite of ourselves, so what is the use of bothering about how
many ways, or where they shall fetch us?"

"Ah, Miss Khayyam, I've often read your father's verses."

"No relation whatever; we're the same person--he was I."

"But don't forget you can see the earth moving by a rising as well as
by a setting star, by watching a sun rise--"