Into this place she went, searching. No one was there. Upon the floors were draperies of soft gray and yellow of a queer, silky fabric. On the shelves were piled huge books, bound in the silver of the trees, written on leaves of pearl.
After turning the leaves a little, Rondah threw herself down upon the piles of gray cloth and sobbed herself to sleep, for she knew it was night outside and that Regan had returned to the fireless palace to find her gone. He was even then searching for her all through the winter snow.
She did not think that he could find her. She did not think that he would try to come to the island. A woman’s fortitude Rondah had not. She had only a child’s strength to endure her grief.
She woke to the same serene stillness, the same superb beauty, the same song in the air. She climbed to the tops of the garnet cliffs. Wild and terrible her voice rang over the island: “Regan! Regan! Regan! Regan!”
And in the day’s hours, when even outside the island all troubles were easier to bear, Rondah sat beside the books, which were so carefully stored, and, considering her strange fate, she said more calmly:
“I have made a mistake, but there is no death! I shall return to Regan after a time. He will fall into the winter’s sleep, but it will be spring soon!” and she turned the leaves of one of the books.
Glancing, she saw bewildering words; reading, she saw deep and awful meaning. Interested, she began to peruse the books, the books which Gregg Dempster had left for her. Nothing seemed omitted from their chronicles back into ages of a primeval chaos, which made “In the beginning” seem near by, back to the great cause of all causes, on through the series of destinies of human souls from where they started to Earth, from Earth to the eternal seas of ages, from realm to realm, from plane to plane, from power to power! All clear! All perfect! Mystery which troubled her all gone! Rondah read on and on.
“Possibly I was sent here to learn,” she said. “These books are wonderful!”
She laved her tear-stained face in the liquid pearl, braided her wind-blown hair into its smooth tresses, found her coronet and replaced it. Day and night passed outside the island; she consoled herself in the study of the strange, bewildering books, and read on, read on.
“It will be spring by and by,” she said, “it will be spring by and by!” and the strong peace of the Sun Island calmed her grief; her tears were dried, her heartache charmed into quiet, her loneliness was forgotten. In the pinkish shades by pearly streams, under diamond trees and ’neath a rainbow sky, she almost forgot Regan!