The house had ceased to be silent; there were movings, stirrings, voices, through it. They seemed to be without, on the stairs, and above, in the upper rooms. There were people on the stairs, mounting up and up on jocund feet. The Bishop heard it perfectly clear now, Annie’s voice from his bedroom overhead, “Up here, I’m up here, Hal!” But listen! There on the hallstair, that was surely a child he heard now! It was little Nan, chuckling and chattering as she climbed. It was her old merry challenge to her father to be out and after her as up she scampered. Yet no, that was not Nan, that merry call was a boy’s, a baby’s,--it was Nan’s baby-boy, who had just learned to go upstairs. The Bishop heard the small ecstatic feet, the slap of exultant little palms on each step achieved. And, like little Nan, the brave wee grandson meant the Bishop to follow him, as on he scurried, up and up, where the stairs were multiplied, were mounting, ever higher, higher. Again the sounds on the stair changed to other footfalls, lighter, firmer, surer, but like the others, very glad; fleet and pattering, pattering, spirit-light, the steps of the little Christ-Child, going home. A slight tremor ran through the length of the form seated there, silver and black. Suddenly all mist was wiped from the Bishop’s brain, leaving it clear. The Nazarene laid his hand on the window-sash, as if opening a door. “Rise!” He said, “Let us go forth into the morning.” Beyond the silent house, Westbury slept on, the star-lit, throbbing city, not knowing. The deep sleep of the earliest dawn held those three faces of the Bishop’s failure, sleep of victors, spent with struggle. In the morning they would awaken, the three the Bishop had loved, to know! In the morning all Westbury would awaken, to know,--that there was only one way to love him now! In the house of each heart that must perforce hold his memory like a shrine, there could never be any chamber for hate. Through the gift of his three years’ presence should the grandmother hold to her breast her baby’s baby, until love, overflowing, should enfold that black-mooded woman, her son’s wife, and both, being mothers, should learn the way of peace by guiding there the little feet of a little child. This, himself all unwitting, should be the Bishop’s immortal gift. Even so, by divine largess of life given to life, should Murray Newbold become the Bishop’s spiritual son. Henceforth, always--instant, insistent--should the Bishop’s presence seem near him at every turning-point, compelling, as in the darkened study on that last day of all their days together.