He moved as in a shadow-world. Time had no significance. Days slipped by uncounted. He was trying to understand life, searching behind the external show for its secret meaning and purpose. Up till now, with the gay generosity of a child, he had shared himself with those whom he loved and by whom he was loved, concentrating and intensifying his affections. Now, dimly at first, he began to view existence from the angle of responsibility, as a river ever broadening and growing more adventurous, pouring down from forgotten highlands to the conjectured sea. It was not his journey that counted; it was the direction and journey of the total river. If he suffered and had been glad, there were multitudes who were glad and had suffered. What was the meaning of it--this alternating sorrow and gladness? For the first time he asked himself how other people thought, felt, endured--people like Jehane and Riska, like the golden woman and Glory. A month ago, had anyone told him that his sister would be taken from him, he would have defied God by turning infidel. But now----. He realized reluctantly how his very passion for her might have crippled her, shutting out the natural and fine things that belong to every man and woman. In giving her too much, he might have deprived her of what was most splendid, giving her ultimate curtailment. How near he had come to doing this he had learnt from Harry. Her words were continually recurring in his memory, dragging him back from despondency. “You won't be bitter--won't break your heart about me? If you did, I should know. I shouldn't be happy.” The shame that he might be paining her was always with him. He had the sure knowledge that, though he could not see her, she still lingered in the house. Sitting with closed eyes, especially at twilight, he believed he could hear her moving--moving gladly. The sound was always behind him, even when he turned his head. He placed flowers about her room, pretending she was alive; he liked to picture her surprise when she found them. A white wraith of laughing mist, he imagined he saw her stoop above them. In his mind he heard her voice, “Oh, Peterkins, how good you still are to me!” The wind touched his cheek; it was her mouth. While her body remained in the house his grief was inconsolable. Yet peace came to him even before the mortal part, long and lily-white, was borne through the sun-swept village to the garden on the hill gazing out to sea, cypress-shadowed and quiet. Through the first long night he sat beside her, fixing her features, everything that had been her, indelibly in his mind. The swathed feet, immobile as marble beneath the tall candles, brought back her saying, “The joy goes into my feet when I'm glad.”