Something came to him that instant--of the perfect law of all things. Those caught in the body of events see but that, hear but that, anticipate but that--the very secret of all the misery and shortsightedness in the world. A man must rise, lift the centre of consciousness above the body of things, even to see physical matters in their true relation. It was all so thrillingly true to him in this glimpse--that a man can never see properly the sequence of his actions unless he can rise above them--that those in the ruck never know what they are about.... He tried to remember her face, as he stood in the hotel room. Failing, his mind returned to their days together. He was apart now and could view them, one by one, in their wonder and beauty. He was torn with them. At different times on the long voyage he had dwelt separately upon the episodes. Some had worn him to exhaustion. People on the ship had believed him a man with a great grief. At first, he looked about from face to face searching for some one whom he might tell, but there was no reception for his story. He had to stop and think that he was different and apart.... She had always been apart. He had carried it alone, moving hushed and alone with his story; lying open-eyed in his berth through the hours of night, and often through the afternoons, an open book face downward upon his chest, his pipe cold ... living again the different moments in the rooms of the stone cottage, in the garden, on the shore; their journeys together, their breakfasts and luncheons and evenings together. The boy was gone from him, from face and body. He did not know what had come instead, but he knew that he carried a creative image in his heart; something of the fragrance of her lingering about him. It had come to him at night alone on deck--the sweetness of her--on the wind. All that he wanted, all that he dreamed best of life and labour and love ... and yet after all, what had he to do with her in relation to these intimate things? Friend, companion, confidante--she was everything that a woman could be, except---- Had not the substance of that kind of giving died for her in the passing of the preacher?... Something of her story frightened him. She had learned the ultimate realness of loving. The man who entered her heart now would have to come with an immortal seal upon him. There was but one who could take up the fatherhood of the Gleam.... Bellair did not feel the man; did not know what she had given him; did not know what had come to him--to his face and carriage and voice. He had not yet lifted himself above so that he could see. Those whom he met, however, were struck with a different Bellair, and those who could not understand thought him touched a little queerly--as a man after sunstroke or any great light.