“I bathed myself in one of the healing streams up there on the High Places,” said Grace and Glory quietly, “and all my deformities were washed away.”

“So that fellow took you to the High Places after all, did he?” said the old lord, half incredulously and still staring at her. “It must have been a miraculous or magical sort of stream, judging by the effect on you.”

“Yes, all the streams up there have miraculous healing qualities,” said she. “Those who bathe in them are perfectly healed and will never know death.”

“Never know death!” repeated he, with a half sneer and a half groan. “What sort of water is that, eh?”

“The same sort of water as that which healed my deformed feet and my crooked mouth,” said she, still looking at him steadily and gently. “It is the Water of Life.”

“Mm!” said he, with what he meant to be a sneering chuckle, but which sounded exactly like a sob. “If I’d known about such streams as those, I wouldn’t be lying here now on what those fools of doctors think is my deathbed!”

“No,” said Grace and Glory, “you would have passed through death already and be alive for evermore.”

The old man looked at her half covetously and half suspiciously. “Where did you learn that jargon, eh?” asked he. “And how do you know you will never die?”

“You see, I have been to the Kingdom of Love,” said she, “and have died to the old loveless life which is death. And Love has been planted in my heart and lives there. Love is eternal. The life that is Love can never die. It is eternal life.”

The old man stared at her. At last he said, still jeeringly, “How did you say this eternal life, or whatever it is, was planted in you?”

A lovely color came into her face. “The Shepherd, who is the Lord of Life and Love, planted it there. It is his life planted in me.” As she mentioned the Shepherd’s name her face shone with a beauty the old man had never before seen.

“The Shepherd,” echoed he testily. “What’s he got to do with it?”

“You know it was he who took me to the High Places where everything happened to me.”

“The Shepherd!” he growled again. “A mere man, just like everyone else—a madman at that! How can he give life? A crazy fairy tale!”

“He is the Lord of Love,” said she softly, “the Lord and Giver of Life. That is why you are lying here now and dying, Sir Fearing,” said she, looking at him with the strangest and the most compassionate look he had ever seen. “Don’t you realize that you are dying because you don’t know anything about love, which is the law of life?”