For he did not presume that no holy water could be more holy, more
potent to destroy an evil thing than the life-blood of a pure
heart poured out for another in free willing devotion.
His own true hidden reality that he had desired to know grew
palpable, recognisable. It seemed to him just this: a great glad
abounding hope that he had saved his brother; too expansive to be
contained by the limited form of a sole man, it yearned for a new
embodiment infinite as the stars.
What did it matter to that true reality that the man's brain
shrank, shrank, till it was nothing; that the man's body could not
retain the huge pain of his heart, and heaved it out through the
red exit riven at the neck; that the black noise came again
hurtling from behind, reinforced by that dissolved shape, and
blotted out for ever the man's sight, hearing, sense.
* * * * *
In the early grey of day Sweyn chanced upon the footprints of a
man--of a runner, as he saw by the shifted snow; and the direction
they had taken aroused curiosity, since a little farther their
line must be crossed by the edge of a sheer height. He turned to
trace them. And so doing, the length of the stride struck his
attention--a stride long as his own if he ran. He knew he was
following Christian.
In his anger he had hardened himself to be indifferent to the
night-long absence of his brother; but now, seeing where the
footsteps went, he was seized with compunction and dread.
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