* * * * * She knew that her agony was not yet upon her, that she was dazed, stunned, without feeling. A dim foreshadowing of what that agony would be was slowly creeping over her. She moved across to a chair by the open window, and sat down. The children’s voices were silent; the iron gates were shut; the gold cross above the Memorial shone like fire as the rays of the setting sun fell upon it. And below in the roadway the ceaseless stream of carriages moved east and west. On the pavement the people gathered, thicker and thicker. A pair of lovers moved along slowly, close against the park railings, beneath the shadow of the trees. The pulses of the great city beat and throbbed; the great tide roared and flowed ever onwards. London, his London, was full of life and sound, a living, solid reality; not--oh, wonder!--a dream city that melted and faded in the sunset. * * * * * Across the great gulf she could never stretch a hand. Death had thrown down no barriers, had brought them no nearer to one another. Wider and deeper--though before it had been very wide and deep--flowed the stream between them. * * * * * Nearer and nearer came the sound, nearer and nearer. Where had she heard it before? There was music in her ears now, the dreamy monotony of a waltz; the scent of dying flowers--tuberose, gardenia--was wafted in from some unseen region. It was a November night, not springtime sunset, and the harsh sound struck upwards through the mist: “Death of a Conservative M.P.! Death of the member for St. Baldwin’s!” * * * * * Away in Cambridge Leo paced beneath the lime-trees, a sick, blank horror at his heart. Nearer, across that verdant stretch of twilit park, sat a wrinkled image of despair, surely a mark for the mirth of ironical gods. And here by the open window sat Judith, absolutely motionless--a figure of stone. Before the great mysteries of life her soul grew frozen and appalled. It seemed to her, as she sat there in the fading light, that this is the bitter lesson of existence: that the sacred serves only to teach the full meaning of sacrilege; the beautiful of the hideous; modesty of outrage; joy of sorrow; life of death. * * * * * Is life indeed over for Judith, or at least all that makes life beautiful, worthy--a thing in any way tolerable? The ways of joy like the ways of sorrow are many; and hidden away in the depths of Judith’s life--though as yet she knows it not--is the germ of another life, which shall quicken, grow, and come forth at last. Shall bring with it no doubt, pain and sorrow, and tears; but shall bring also hope and joy, and that quickening of purpose which is perhaps as much as any of us should expect or demand from Fate. THE END. RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY. Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: