She paused, as if she saw something enter the eyes that had listened so fervently. Bellair cleared his voice. “I remember something _he_ said,” he told her. “That matter is the slate--spirit the message that is written. The slate is broken, the message erased, but _eyes_ have seen it, and the transaction is complete. For the spirit has integrated itself in expression----” “I think he said it, for you to tell me now,” the Faraway Woman whispered. “Only _he_ could have halted your story,” Bellair added. “... I told you when my Guest came in the afterglow, of the house of our nearest but distant neighbour; now I am telling you of years afterward, when there were many houses between on the long road, and my playmate Paul had gone away to Sidney. Lois had long been married. I was seventeen--and so strangely and subtly hungering--for expression, for something that I did not know, which meant reality to me, but which was foreign and of no import to all about me. Often at evening I stared up the long road.... I remember late one night in the nearest house, the soft wind brought me the cry of a child. It was so newly come and it was not well. I went to it just as I was, though the people had just moved in and were strange to us. It was thirst--as we know. I went to it, as we would have gone to a waterfall. The door of their house was locked, but I knocked. The father came down at last. The lower rooms were filled with unpacked boxes. I told him why I had come. He talked to me strangely. He went upstairs and sent the mother down to me. It did not seem as if I could live through that night--and not have my way. She put her arms about me, led me upstairs to a room that was not occupied--save a chair by the window. I stood there waiting until she returned with the child.... I saw lights back in our house when they missed me--voices, but I could not go. In the early light I heard the woman saying to my mother: ‘... We really needed her so. Baby was restless, but he is much better and quiet with her. They are very happy together.... Yes, she is safe and well.’” The Faraway Woman left him now to go to the child. 4 Returning, she put the kettle on, and made tea in the earthen pot. To Bellair her coming into the room again was a replenishment--as if she had been gone for hours; and this started a pang deep in his heart, which presently suffused everything when he realised that his ship had come for him. It was past midnight.... In reality it was to-morrow that his ship would sail. “You listen wonderfully,” she said. “It seems all about the little Gleam,” he answered. “It makes everything significant about the open boat.... I forget to swallow----” They laughed together.