His gold signet ring he flung away into the little pool, which, collecting the surface drainage of the very summit, brimmed up below the rock to overflow in a tiny stream. He tried to make a duck and drake of it as his last contribution to the sovereign remedy, but he failed, and he smiled at his failure.
He was becoming very much detached, even from himself, and the one thing to which he clung was the memory of his love.
Aura! Aura! Aura!
He must find her somewhere; and she seemed so close! Sometimes he wondered if she were not there, in his eyes, in his heart.
"Aura," he murmured to himself; "Aura!"
That night he slept dreamlessly. And when he opened his eyes, lo! there was a Sea of Light. The great shining arch of the sky seemed to him the golden gate; the open door lay behind him. He was on the other side. He had found himself and her as they had been always, not as a part but as the whole.
"Tad ek am," he thought, realising with a rush that He was All Things, and that All Things were in Him. So, as he lay gazing, the round sun rose gloriously, and he sank into unconsciousness.
* * * * *
When he awoke it was to find himself in a work-house infirmary; a long, bare room set in a straight row with beds. Some hive of atoms must have found him on the mountain-top and brought him to die here. Well! it could not be for long. There was a black screen folded up, ready for use, at the foot of the bed. He knew what that meant; but nothing seemed to matter now that he had passed the open door to lose and find Himself.
"Only those who lose can find." His mind, blurred, confused, lingered over this certainty.