And Edith had lain for ten years on her back, and every year the hours had gone more lightly, through the hope of seeing him. She had outlived her time of torment and rebellion. There was a sense in which her life, in spite of its frustration, was complete. The love through which her womanhood struggled for victory in defeat had fulfilled itself by gradual growth into something like maternal passion. There was no selfishness in her attitude to him and his devotion. By accepting it she took his best and offered it to God for him. With fragile, dedicated hands she nursed and sheltered the undying votive flame. She seemed a saint who had foregone heaven and remained on earth to help him. Her womanhood, wrapped from him in veil upon veil of her mysterious suffering, had never removed itself from him. She held him by all that was indomitable in her own nature, and in spite of his lapses, he remained her lover. She was aware of these lapses and grieved over them and forgave them, laying them, as she had laid her brother's sin, to the account of her unhappy spine. In Edith's tender fancy her spine had become responsible for all the shortcomings of these beloved persons. If Walter could have married Anne seven years ago there would have been no dreadful Lady Cayley; and if she could have married poor Charlie she would not have had to think of him as "poor Charlie" now. It had been hard on him. That was precisely what poor Charlie was thinking. And if that sister-in-law was to come between them, too, it would be harder still. But Edith insisted that she would make no difference. "In fact," said she, "you can come more than ever. For if Walter's absorbed in Anne, and Anne's absorbed in Walter--" He took it up gaily. "Then I may be absorbed in you? So, after all, it turns out to my advantage." "Yes. You can console me. You can console me now, this minute, if you'll play to me." He was always lamenting that he could do nothing for her. Playing to her was the one thing he could do, and he did it well. He rose joyously and went to the piano, removing the dust from the keys with his handkerchief. "How will you have it? Sentimental and soporific? Or loud and strong?" "Oh, loud and strong, please. Very strong and very loud." "Right you are. You shall have it hot and strong, and loud enough to wake the dead." That was his rendering of Chopin's "Grande Polonaise." He let himself loose in it, with a rush, a vehemence, a diabolic brilliance and clamour. The quiet room shook with the sounds he wrenched out of the little humble piano in the corner. And as Edith lay and listened, her spirit, too, triumphed, and was free; it rode gloriously on the storm of sound. It was, she said, laughing, quite enough to wake the dead. This was the miracle that he alone could accomplish for her.