"Listen! What do you hear ?" "I hear the sound as of a great throbbing of water." "Ah! you do hear it?
Well, I had to go through that door--the door of the Timeless" (and she shuddered as she pointed to the fourth door)--"to find you; for if I had not gone, you would never have entered again; and because I went, the waters around my cottage will rise and rise, and flow and come, till they build a great firmament of waters over my dwelling.

But as long as I keep my fire burning, they cannot enter.
I have fuel enough for years; and after one year they will sink away again, and be just as they were before you came.

I have not been buried for a hundred years now." And she smiled and wept.
"Alas! alas!" I cried.

"I have brought this evil on the best and kindest of friends, who has filled my heart with great gifts." "Do not think of that," she rejoined.

"I can bear it very well.