"They tried all sorts of ways, and tried and tried, but it never was any use, and they gave up and died." "Did it seem so clear? He's beginning again." It was a kind of nocturne or slumber song, a rocking movement with a flute tone moving through a dimmer mist of harmonies, soothing here and there a restless chord. "Has He not made the night for your slumber, and darkened the earth for your sleep, and lit the earth softly with stars, and moved it among them as a child's cradle is rocked? Wake, then, if you may not sleep, but only to watch the moon rising and hear the croon of the sea. Murmur and motion, motion and murmur; but remember wonder, remember beauty, and let not anything persuade you from them. A moon and a sea be in your heart, a hush of an inner place. _Ora pro nobis_, and for the growth of flowers on ancient graves. _Requiescant in pace_, souls stately and dead. If the truth is a dream, then the dream is true, and therefore He made the night for your slumber, and darkened and lit the earth and moved it softly among stars, and gave to the moon its rising and to the sea its motion and murmur." * * * * * They went out by the swing-door together, passed from the shadow of the apse to the level yard, and stopped. "I think your name is Helen Bourn," said the other. "Mine is Rachel Mavering. You will come to see me often. We are so near." Chapter VI Introducing Gard Windham and the Brotherhood of Consolation One warm, rainy evening in the year '44, and in the great city that is flanked on either side by a river and a strait, Father Andrew plodded along an avenue of small shops, whose windows rested their chins on the wet sidewalk and blinked through steaming panes. His dingy umbrella dripped in the rain, and the skirts of his robe flapped against his white stockings. He had in his mind no more than presently the opening of the door in the brick wall of a cloister court, the sleepy roll of the vesper service, refection, complines, a little private, companionable prayer, such as ever seems to be heard kindly if one is trustful, and then the sleep which comes to tired saint and sinner alike with singular tolerance. Alas! one's fat legs became tired enough with climbing stairways, and the soul sore with its strained sympathies. A lean, wet-haired boy, plodding past him, glanced up with large, drowsy-lidded eyes, and slid under his broad umbrella, making no comment. Father Andrew chuckled and sighed. Giving and taking were a simple incident, if giving were merely to carry an umbrella for two, taking merely to step under it, and charity were not charity but companionship. "Where are you going?" "I guess I'll go with you," after hesitating. "But where did you come from?" "Lappo's." "And where's Lappo?" "I don' know. He's dead."