"Oh, there was always a gap there," said Uniacke hastily, touching the letter that lay in his pocket, and feeling, strangely, as if the contact fortified that staggering pilgrim on the path of lies--his conscience. "There was always a gap. It was a whim of the Skipper's--a mad whim." "But I understood he was sane when his shipmate was buried? You said so." "Sane? Yes, in comparison with what he is now. But one could not argue with him. He was distraught with grief." Sir Graham looked at Uniacke with the heavy suspicion of a sick man, but he said nothing more on the subject. He turned as if to go out. Uniacke stopped him. "You are going to paint?" "Yes." Again Uniacke thought of the doctor's advice. "Sir Graham," he said, speaking with obvious hesitation, "I--I would not work." "Why?" "You are not fit to bear any fatigue at present. Creation will inevitably retard your recovery." "I am not ill in body, and work is the only panacea for a burdened mind. If it cannot bring me happiness, at least--" "Happiness!" Uniacke interrupted. "And what may not bring that! Why, Sir Graham, even death--should that be regarded as a curse? May not death bring the greatest happiness of all?" The painter's forehead contracted, but the clergyman continued with gathering eagerness and fervour: "Often when I pray beside a little dead child, or--or a young lad, and hear the mother weeping, I feel more keenly than at any other time the fact that blessings descend upon the earth. The child is taken in innocence. The lad is bereft of the power to sin. And their souls are surely at peace." "At peace," said the painter heavily. "Yes, that is something. But the mother--the mother weeps, you say." "Human love, the most beautiful thing in the world must still be earth-bound, must still be selfish." "But--" "Sir Graham, I'll confess to you even this, that on Sunday evening, when, after the service, we sang that hymn, 'Lead, Kindly Light,' I thought would it not be a very beautiful thing if the body mouldering beneath that stone in the churchyard yonder were indeed the body of--of your wonder-child." "Uniacke!" "Yes, yes. Don't you remember how he looked up from his sordid misery to the rainbow?" "How can I ever forget it?" "Does that teach you nothing?" There was a silence. Then the painter said: "Death may be beautiful, but only after life has been beautiful. For it is beautiful to live as Jack would have lived." "Is living--somewhere," interposed Uniacke quickly. "Perhaps. I can't tell. But I hear the mother weeping. I hear the mother weeping." That night Uniacke lay long awake. He heard the sea faintly. Was it not weeping too? It seemed to him in that dark hour as if one power alone was common to all people and to all things--the power to mourn.