Then came a crash as of icebergs breaking. The wall had fallen. Father Renaudin had rushed to it and struck it with his staff of glass. The staff fell shattered in a thousand pieces, but the wall fell too, for the time of angels and of spirits was past in the star. The days of its revelations were ended. It was Rondah’s star, and other instruments were not needed for its progression.
Regan in despair had dropped down as the stranger had flown. The elf men, bringing Regan, the bird men and Father Renaudin all rushed across the lava path, which the winter convulsions had uplifted from the water. They surrounded Rondah. They laid Regan at her feet. Jupiter’s day ended. Night fell.
Rondah sank upon her knees and, lifting his head in her arms, pressed kisses on Regan’s cold lips.
“He is dead! he is dead! Let time die, too, that I need not leave him!” she sobbed, and a moan of sympathy burst from the saddened hearts of the bird women. The elf men wept and wailed.
“No, not dead,” said Father Renaudin, “only overcome by the helpless horror of looking. He thought you would go. I thought you would go—the Star and all the angels thought you would go. It is an old, old tempter in a new sphere. You have saved a world from falling, Rondah. Your mission is here only. Jupiter is a fiery ball, unfit for life except of demons.”
Regan opened his eyes at last, slowly, wearily.
“Here,” he cried, with a half-sob, “here—not gone, not left me for a world of diamond mountains with golden rivers!” And he clasped Rondah in his ice-cold arms.
With all the anguish of the years in her voice, Rondah replied:
“Not for a universe of worlds, not for Heaven, until I must!”