The Faraway Woman reached for the child, and held it close and strangely. Fleury offered her water, but she took just a sup and bade them finish the cup. “That was the happy part,” she added in a whisper, her back moving slowly to and fro, as she held the child high. “It might all have been happier, but Olga was not quite like the others. They did not tell her what they knew, and Olga never could tell them what she felt. Another time--some happy time--I will tell you, who are so good--you will understand the rest of the story----” “Would you tell us if Olga’s guest came again?” the preacher asked. “Yes, he came again,” she said softly. Bellair sat still for several moments. Then he leaned forward and touched the child’s dress. 8 They made an appearance of drinking (with a cracker in hand) at midnight, but it was for the sake of the woman--a sup of tepid water. The long night sailed by. Slowly the moon sank--that dry moon, brick-red and bulbous, as it entered the western sea. All was still in the little boat. Bellair was ready to meet his suffering. He could not sleep--because the woman was near. That was the night that her quality fixed itself for all time exemplary in his heart. The little story had revealed to him a new sanctuary. He loved it and the little Gleam; as for that, he loved Fleury, too. It was a strange resolving of all separateness that had come to him from these friends. More than ever thrilling it had come, with Stackhouse out of the boat and since the story had been made his. She had been frightened by his loss of consciousness at the end of the battle. He had awakened looking into her eyes. He scarcely dared to recall what she had said in her anxiety, but it was an extraordinary matter of value. What a mother she was; and what a little girl lived in that story, and now!... That little girl was still in her heart. The recent days in the open boat had not spoiled her; nor the recent years of loneliness and tragedy. Out of it all had come certain perfect works--the babe in her arms, her own fortitude and fearlessness of death; the little girl still in her eyes and heart. Bellair saw that a man loves the child in a woman, quite as much as a woman loves the boy in a man.... She had said that Fleury and he were brothers and heroes. He knew better in his own case. Still she had said it, adding that the discovery of such men to her was a part of the very bloom of life.... Bellair was not thinking the personal relation now. Fleury and she were mated in his own thoughts. From the beginning, this was so; and yet he did not ask more. He had come to believe from their glorious humanity (so strange to him and unpromising in the beginning)--that the world was crowded with latent values which, once touched and quickened into life, would make it a paradise.