There was a long silence after this. Gavan lay back on the heather, his hat tilted over his tired eyes. Eppie sat above him, staring out at the empty blue. Her longing, her pity, her revolt from this suffering,--for herself and for him,--her vague but vehement desires, flew out--out; she almost seemed to see them, like strong, bright birds flying so far at last that the blue engulfed them. The idea hurt her. She turned away from the dissolving vastness before which it was impossible to think or feel, turned her head to look down at the long, white form beside her, exhausted and inert. Darling Gavan. How he suffered. His poor mother, too. She saw Gavan’s mother in a sort of padlocked palanquin under a burning sky, surrounded by dazzling deserts, a Blue-beard, bristling with swords, reeling in a drunken sentinelship round her prison. Considering Gavan, with his hidden face, the thought of his last words came more distinctly to her. A long time had passed, and his breast was rising quietly, almost as if he slept. Conjecture grew as to the odd form of action in which he evidently trusted. “Do you pray a great deal, Gavan?” she asked. He nodded under the hat. “Do you feel as if there was a God--quite near you--who listened?” “I wouldn’t want to live unless I could feel that.” Eppie paused at this, perplexed, and asked presently, with a slight embarrassment, “Why not?” “Nothing would have any meaning,” said Gavan. “No meaning, Gavan? You would still care for your mother and want to help her, wouldn’t you?” “Yes, but without God there would be no hope of helping her, no hope of strength. Why, Eppie,” came the voice from behind the hat, “without God life would be death.” Eppie retired to another discomfited silence. “I am afraid I don’t think much about God,” she confessed at last. “I always feel as if I had strength already--I suppose, heaps and heaps of strength. Only--to-day--I do know more what you mean. If only God would do something for you and your mother. You want something so big to help you if you are very, very unhappy.” “Yes, and some one to turn to when you are lonely.” Again Eppie hesitated. “Well, but, Gavan, while you’re here you have me, you know.” At this Gavan pushed aside his hat almost to laugh at her. “What a funny little girl you are, Eppie! What a dear little girl! Yes, of course, I have you. But when I go away? And even while I’m here,--what if we were both lonely together? Can’t you imagine that? The feeling of being lost in a great forest at night. You have such quaint ideas about God.” “I’ve never had any ideas at all. I’ve only thought of Some One who was there,--Some One I didn’t need yet. I’ve always thought of God as being more for grown-up people. Lost in a forest together? I don’t think I would mind that so much, Gavan. I don’t think I would be frightened, if we were together.”