It is likely that Aaron King, himself, could not, at that time, have told
why, as he was leaving the hills, he had paused to visit once more the
spot where Sibyl Andres had brought to him her three gifts from the
mountains--where, in her pure innocence, she had danced before him the
dance of the mating butterflies--and where, with the music of her violin,
she had saved their friendship from the perils that threatened it--lifting
their intimate comradeship into the pure atmosphere of the higher levels,
even as she had shown him the trails that lead from the lower canyon to
the summits and peaks of the encircling mountain walls. But when he
rejoined his friend there was something in his face that prevented the
novelist from making any comment in a laughing vein.
As the two men passed outward through the canyon gates and, looking
backward as they went, saw those mighty doors close silently behind them,
the artist was moved by emotions that were strange and new to the man who,
two months before, had watched those gates open to receive him. This, too,
is true; as that man, then, knew, but did not know, the mountains; so this
man, now, knew, yet still did not know, himself.
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