He slipped out. His footsteps faded down the stairs. In the house there was no sound--only her weary sighing. Everything was hushed and shuttered. Outside waves dragged against the sand and broke in long sparkling ripples. A pulley creaked as a fisherman hoisted sail. Across the bay came the panting of the steamer from Lerici. It drew in against the pier; boys' laughter sounded and splashing as they dived for money. Again the panting, wandering off into the distance. It rounded the headland. 441 Silence----. So much of life in the world and none to spare for her! And this had come at a time when her father was ill, so that neither he nor her mother could come to her. She threw back the sheet which was spread above her slender body. Her hand groped out. “Peter, Peterkins, you hav'n't left me?” “I'll never leave you, and when you're better----.” Again the incredulous smile! He' could get no further. Her voice, quite near to him, reached him remotely. “If I should die---.” He spoke quickly. “You're not going to.” “But dearest, if I should----. You won't be bitter--won't break your heart about me? If you did, I should know. I shouldn't be happy. Promise that you'll still trust God and be happy.” Against his belief he promised. He thought her sleeping. Her lips moved. “God! No man hath seen----. Beloved, we hav'n't, have we?” He was shaken with sobbing. He had to wait. “Dear little heart, you've been God to me and--and to everybody.” “Hold my hand, Peter.” He was holding it. “I'm so tired. It's night. Light the lamp. I want to see you.” He unlatched the shutters. Across the dazzling blue of the gulf the sun stared luridly, swinging low above the sea-line. Her brain began to wander. She spoke unforgettable things--unforgettable in their tenderness. It seemed that behind the confusion of her words her spirit was preparing him. It was as though she turned the pages of memory haphazard, chancing on phrases which summed up her short eighteen years of existence. “Peter in a Christmas cab!” There was what he had called the laughter of birds in the way she said it. “Oh, it must be something splendid.” She came to a winter when she had nearly died--when Peter had been sent for hurriedly from Sandport. “Peter! Peter! Peter!” She wailed his name childishly. Then, as though she snuggled warmly against one she trusted, “He's never going to leave me. I shall get well now.” For some minutes she was silent. Of a sudden she sat up, crying, “I don't want to be a dead'un. I don't want to be a dead'un.” It all came back--his boyish attempt to explain heaven to her, and her terror because there was no means of escape by trains or trams. As then, so now, he failed to console her. She sank on the pillow exhausted by her panic.