He put his arm round her and, for the first time since their reunion, he kissed her, and she returned his kiss.
Over Elis the twilight was falling, a green twilight, sylvan and very ethereal, tremulous in its delicate beauty. It stole through the green doors, and down through the murmuring pine trees. The sheep-bells were ringing softly; the flocks were going homeward from pasture; and the chime of their little bells mingled with the wide whispering of the eternities among the summits of the pine trees. Music of earth mingled with the music from a distance that knew what the twilight knew.
Presently the two marble figures in the chamber of the Hermes began to fade away gradually, as if deliberately withdrawing themselves from the gaze of men. At last only their outlines were visible to Rosamund and to Dion. But even these told of the Golden Age, of the age of long peace.
“FAREWELL!”
Some one had said it within that chamber, and a second voice had echoed it.
As the guardian of the Hermes watched the two pilgrims walking slowly away down the valley he noticed that the man’s right arm clasped the woman’s waist. And, so, they passed from his sight and were taken by the green twilight of Elis.