husband.'

With a sudden shyness she hid her face against his breast, and he ran
his hand caressingly over her arm, which was like cool velvet to the
touch.

The glimmering stars grew stronger, and a breeze from the sea crept
murmuringly over the spring-scented fields.

'There are times,' he said, 'when I long for the power to reach out for
the great truths that lie hidden in space and in the silence of a night
like this--to put them in such simple language that every one could
read and understand. If I could only translate the wonder of you and
the spirit of the sea into words.'

She looked up into his face, and something of the mystic blue of the
skies lay in the depths of her eyes.

IV.

Late that night he resumed work in his study, but a thousand memories
and fancies came crowding to his mind. He tried to shake them off, but
they clung to him--memories of the war--memories of the times when the
world was drunk with passion. He heard, as if afar off, the whine and
shriek of shells, and he saw the dead--grotesque, silent, horrible.

That was the great absurdity--_the dead_.

It was hopeless to write. He was no longer pilot of his thoughts.

He rose to his feet and threw open the door with an impatient desire
for fresh air. Though the cool breeze refreshed his temples, the
restlessness of his mind was only increased by the hush of nature's
nocturne, through which the sound of the sea came like a drone.

Beneath the canopy of that same sky the dead were lying. Across the
seas a breeze of spring was stealing about the graves, as now it played
about his face.

What was his part towards them--to mourn, and fill his life with
useless melancholy? To forget, and turn his face towards the future?

Forget . . . ?

'There are times'--he found himself repeating mechanically the words
which, a few hours before, he had spoken to Elise--'when I long for the
power to reach out for the great truths--hidden in space--and in the
silence of the night.'

Suddenly his brow grew calm. The baffled, questioning look left his
eyes, and he smiled strangely.

Closing the door, he turned back to his desk, and taking the pen,
looked for a full minute at the paper before him.

'_To My Unborn Son_.'

He gazed at what he had written as though the words had appeared of
their own volition.

'_To My Unborn Son_.'

With a far-away dreaminess in his eyes he dipped his pen in the ink and
commenced to write:

'Somewher