I could not utter a word. The beautiful woman smiled at me in a friendly way beneath features like her son’s, timeless and without age, full of an animated will. Her look was fulfillment, her greeting meant homecoming. In silence I stretched out my hands to her. She seized both mine with her strong, warm ones.

“You are Sinclair. I knew you at once. I am very glad to see you!”

Her voice was deep and warm, I drank it in like sweet wine. And now I looked up in her tranquil face, into the black eyes of unfathomable depth. I looked at her fresh, ripe mouth, queenly forehead, which bore the sign.

“How glad I am!” I said to her and kissed her hands. “I believe I have been on my way all my life long⁠—but now I have come home.”

She smiled in a motherly way.

“One never comes home,” she said gently. “But where friendly roads converge, the whole world looks for an hour like home.”