But the light was still flickering and uncertain; the black clouds hung overhead ready to engulf her in fresh storms; a chance word or sound would open up the wound with a piercing anguish of pain. Why dwell upon the picture of a soul in torment? Vanna struggled on as thousands have done before her; but it was not until five weeks had passed that her return letter was dispatched to Piers in India. "You are right, and you are brave. Thank you for being brave. Thank you for sparing me from the doom of spoiling your life. Don't pity me too much. You have given me more than you know, far more; something greater even than love--understanding! Now I can feel; now I can sympathise; now I can help. This is your doing, your gift to me, so be comforted! All my life long I shall be thankful for these eight years. "No! I will not write; not yet! In time to come we may meet and be friends, but this is Her day, it belongs to her--to that young girl who will be your wife. I'm not perfect, dear; you know my faults. I should be jealous--that's only natural, I think. It would hurt me to hear her praises, and perhaps (I'm very feminine!) I might in revenge put out all my wiles--and I know how to charm you, Piers!--to keep you a little longer to myself. I'm honest, you see; as you say, we have always been honest with each other--for all our sakes, we'll leave letters alone. When it is settled--it _will_ be settled, I feel that--you can write and let me know, and tell me her name, and send me her photograph. I'm so poor and mean a thing that I am glad she is not pretty; glad that for the last time you called me your `dearest love.' "I am quite well, and Jean is good to me, and so--good-bye...!" CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. THE SUPREME SECRET. On the evening of her thirty-eighth birthday Vanna Strangeways said adieu to her last patient, and slowly traversed the streets leading towards Jean Gloucester's home. It was a dull and dreary evening, but her thoughts were not sad. The years which had passed by since the receipt of Piers Rendall's farewell letter, and the subsequent news of his engagement and marriage, had marked the various stages which attend all great griefs. First the storm, with the roar of the wind, which threatens to destroy the very foundations of life; then the desert; loneliness; an outlook of flat, colourless sand; finally, slowly and surely, the inflowing calm. Hopeless, long-cherished grief is impossible to a soul who has tasted of love for God and its fellow-men. However severely a tree has been pruned, its leaves shoot forth bravely at the call of the spring, and in a few years' time strength is gathered for another blossoming.