"Isn't it--isn't it a little rough on a fellow, sir?" In a moment I was on my knees by his side. "Derry! Derry! Derry!" I repeated over and over again. It was all the speech I could find. "Isn't it rough on a fellow, sir? Isn't it? Isn't it?" "Derry my boy, my boy!" "I feel you're right in a way, sir--you're bound to be wiser than I am--but when I heard them singing that song this evening ... le long de mon calvaire ... en espérant j'ai pu souffrir ... rien n'est fini, tout recommence ... it seemed so like it all, sir--you don't know--you've no idea----" I rocked him gently in my arms. "You don't know--you can't possibly know--nobody knows who hasn't been through it. Mon calvaire--mon Dieu! And to have it hurt you like that just because you are _able_ to hope! Not the end after all, but the beginning of everything! Oh, can't you see it, sir--not even a little bit of it?" "Yes, talk, my boy--get it over----" "I shall be all right in a minute. It simply got me by the throat. That song, I mean. I suppose it's just an ordinary song really--the French are like that--but it got me by the throat, it was so like me. So like the way things have been with me. What did they say it was called? I've forgotten." "'_Il est venu le Jour._'" "Yes, that's it. The day's come. After all that. It came that night--I'm not making a joke, sir--that night in the garden. It's been day ever since. Night's been day, like a soft sun shining all night. And I wouldn't ask you to lift a finger to help me if I didn't know it was quite all right. I do know. It's she who's made everything all right. That's the funny thing about her--that she's made everything perfectly all right again. I wonder why that is?" "Don't wonder. Just stay quiet a while." "But a fellow can't help wondering a bit. Why should it have made everything all right the moment I set eyes on her? But she did. I told you about something happening before, sir, something I can't quite remember about. That seemed like some sort of an emptying--leaving me all empty and aching, if you understand. But this filled it all up again, with happiness and I don't know what--lovely things--all since that night. That's what makes me so sure. I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. It isn't the kind of thing one cares to be untruthful about, is it? You're in the same house with her--you see her--you know what I mean----" Between this simplicity and his late menace, what could I say for his comfort, what do for my own? I was torn in two. I was a weary, elderly man, careworn and disillusioned; but he, through unimaginable tribulation, had mysteriously found this place of stillness and peace and hope. What his intimidation had not done, that his utter reliance and trust now began to do. He sat up on the rocks and began to talk.