"Thou didst not find him yonder among the Shades," said Nya suddenly, as though she were continuing a conversation. "Say now, Maiden, art thou satisfied, or wouldst thou seek for him again?"
"I would seek him through all the heavens and all the earths. Mother, my soul burns for a sight of him, and if I cannot find him, then I must die, and go perchance where he is not."
"Good," said Nya; "the effort wearies me, for I grow weak, yet for thy sake I will try to help thee, who saved me from the Red Death."
Then the dwarf-women came in and beat upon their drums, and, as before, the old Mother of the Trees began to sing, but Noie sat aside, for in this night's play she would take no part. Again Rachel sank into sleep, and again it seemed to her that she was swept from the earth into the region of the stars and there searched world after world.
She saw many strange and marvellous things, things so wonderful that her memory was buried beneath the mass of them, so that when she woke again she could not recall their details. Only of Richard she saw nothing. Yet as her life returned to her, it seemed to Rachel that for one brief moment she was near to Richard. She could not see him, and she could not hear him, yet certainly he was near her. Then her eyes opened, and Nya ceasing from her song, asked: "What tidings, Wanderer?"
"Little," she answered feebly, for she was very tired, and in a faint voice she told her all.
"Good," said Nya, nodding her grey head. "This time he was not so far away. To-morrow I will make thy spirit strong, and then perhaps he will come to thee. Now rest."
So next night Nya laid her charm upon Rachel as before, and again her spirit sought for Richard. This time it seemed to her that she did not leave the earth, but with infinite pain, with terrible struggling, wandered to and fro about it, bewildered by a multitude of faces, led astray by myriads of footsteps. Yet in the end she found him. She heard him not, she saw him not, she knew not where he was, but undoubtedly for a while she was with him, and awoke again, exhausted, but very happy.
Nya heard her story, weighing every word of it but saying nothing. Then she signed to the dwarfs to bring her a bowl of dew, and stared in it for a long while. The dwarf-women also stared into their bowls, and afterwards came to her, talking to her on their fingers, after which all three of them upset the dew upon a rock, "breaking the pictures."