“The day his temple was finished was the happiest day of his life. There was a great festival, and from the city, crowds of people had come to worship Diana for the first time under a roof, and to gaze at the building itself. Small and simple, it was yet the most wonderful they had ever seen, with its columns of an entirely new shape, and its marble porch. And everyone was loud in the praise of its architect.
“That night, Dinocrates was too happy to sleep. He lay thinking of the temple which had been his life work, till suddenly a great desire to see it again swept over him. So he got up, dressed, and began to walk quickly in its direction. In half an hour he reached the glade in the heart of which stood the temple, and before long he saw it gleaming through the encircling trees. Dinocrates stopped short in delight at the beauty of the scene. There was a full moon, and its silver light poured down upon the little white building and made it dazzling to behold. Graceful shadows from the trees trembled upon its roof, and lay in long bars across the grass, and in the deep silence he could hear his heart beating. All at once, another sound made him start—the sound of a horn coming from far away, very faint and sweet! And then, scarcely trusting his eyes, he saw in the distance through the misty avenues of trees, white forms moving. They came nearer, rushing over the grass as though blown softly by an invisible wind, and through the silvery haze he caught a glimpse of white arms, and beautiful faces, and of one face more lovely than the rest, with cloudy hair in which something in shape like a crescent moon, sparkled and shone.
“For a second he saw the forms of beautiful women sweeping up the steps towards the door of the temple, and then the vision disappeared. There was only the moonlight on the grass, and the shadows, and silence.
“‘The goddess herself takes possession of her temple,’ thought Dinocrates. ‘And mortals cannot see the gods and live.’
“He felt so happy, and yet so tired, that he sank down before the temple to rest, and the glade was all full of sunshine before the people who had come to look for him found him lying there, and saw that he was dead....”
“Oh,” whispered Diana after a moment, “that’s an awfully sad story.”
“No,” said Rachel’s voice on the other side of Mr. Sheston’s arm-chair. “Not really. Because he came back again. In another life, you know. You’ll see in a minute. She will see him again, won’t she?” In the darkness Rachel turned towards Mr. Sheston.
“The story isn’t finished yet,” he replied. “Let me go on with it.
“Dinocrates died in that life, as Rachel says, and hundreds of years passed. That first temple with the columns of a new shape was at last destroyed by fire, and a new temple took its place, much larger, much more splendid, as you will see in a moment. But the architect who planned the second building copied those pillars invented by Dinocrates, so though his temple had been destroyed, his work you understand, in a way, went on. Now you are going to see that second temple, still on the same place or site, as it is called, of the first altar in the glade. And you shall see Dinocrates also—again as a little boy. Before you see him, however, I may tell you that he doesn’t remember anything about himself or his life many years before. Remember that hundreds of years have passed between the life-time of those simple people you have just seen and the people you are going to see now. Even they lived six hundred years before the birth of Christ. But, as you will discover, they had already learnt to make wonderful buildings.