resentment, all turmoil, had
died out of his heart for ever. That strange peace had closed about him
again, and the falling night held no terrors. Rather it seemed to spread
wings of comfort above him. And always the crooning of the sea was like a
voice that softly called him.

It came very suddenly at the last--the sign for which he waited. Someone
had begun to mount the cliff-path, and--though he was out of sight--he
heard a low, summoning whistle in the darkness. It was Dicky's whistle.
He knew it well. Dicky was coming to look for him.

For a second every pulse--every nerve--leaped to answer that call.
For a second he stood tense while that surging power within him
sprang upwards, and in sheer amazing fire of sacrifice consumed the
earthly impulse.

Then it was over. His arms went wide to the night. Without a cry, without
a tremor, he flung himself backwards over the grassy edge.

The crooning sea and the overhanging cliff muffled the sound of his fall.
And no one heard or saw--save God Who seeth all.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MESSAGE

From the day that Juliet relinquished her perpetual vigil, the
improvement in Vera Fielding was almost uninterrupted. She recovered her
strength very slowly, but her progress was marked by a happy certainty
that none who saw her could question. She still leaned upon Juliet, but
it was her husband alone who could call that deep content into her eyes
which was gradually finding a permanent abiding-place in her heart. The
nearness of death had done for them what no circumstance of life had ever
accomplished. They had drawn very close together in its shadow, and as
they gradually left it behind the tie still held them in a bond that had
become sacred to them both. It was as if they had never really known each
other till now.

All Vera's arrogance had vanished in her husband's presence, just as his
curt imperiousness had given place to the winning dominance which he knew
so well how to wield. "You'll do it for me," was one of his pet phrases,
and he seldom uttered it in vain. She gave him the joyful sacrifice of
love newly-awakened.

"I wonder if we shall go on like this when I'm well again," she said to
him on an evening of rose-coloured dusk in early August when he was
sitting by her side with her long thin hand in his.

"Like what?" said Edward Fielding.

She smiled at him from her pillow. "Well, spoiling each other in this
way. Will you never be overbearing and dictator