But it was not demonstration that swayed me to my irrevocable act. It was rather that transcending love that he himself had invoked. Love and pity lest this my son should once more be cast to the wolves of pain welled up like a sudden fountain in my heart. Nay, not from my own poor heart did it well, but from That above us that showed its dim crowned head and outspread arms every four seconds, every eleven seconds, four times a minute, cloaked itself in the night again, and again softly reappeared with the sweep of the occulted Light--from That I think my pity descended. No thought for the morrow had that Original taken, no care of father or mother or friend, but only for the weak and the outcasts of the world. Who was outcast if this grave and destiny-ridden young figure before me was not? I had stood before him waiting for him to strike me down; now in his patience and submission he struck me down. I could leave the Airds. I could turn my back on them for ever. This dark-bloused lad was my loved son, who mutely implored me to be given his chance. Were the Airds to die I should have to part from them. Death, that comes unannounced at any moment, parts us from all our friends. My portrait need never hang in the Lyonnesse Club to remind Madge Aird that she had once had a friend who had betrayed her. I need not even return to England. So Derry might but establish himself, what did it matter though I wandered? I had no love, nobody had a love for me, such as that that made his days and nights softly radiant. In a few years I should be gone. But he would be once more in the glory of his prime, living a life of my giving. In him would be my resurrection. To help him over this dead point the rest of my life was at his service. His prayer should be answered. But not without a stipulation. When all is said one has to be practical. Should she after all fail to lead him by the hand forward again into those fair and untrodden fields of life, all was rescinded. He must report progress. No step must be taken without my knowledge. One does not meditate a treason against one's friends quite so light-heartedly as all that. Nor need he yet be told what I had in my mind. I turned to him. "I shall go back now," I said. He did not speak. "But I shall do nothing to-night. In fact I won't do anything till I've seen you again." He did not thank me in words. "But the understanding is that you do nothing either. Is that agreed?" "I promise that, sir." "Then that's all. I'm very tired. I think I want to sleep." "Won't you lean on my shoulder, sir?" "Perhaps I will----" Only to touch her willing hand--only to carry her letter in his breast--only to feel that in the unison of their two hearts the rest of the world might be lost in oblivion---- VI