shone in on her, lying on the floor, with
the dropped journal....

But she was proud, and soon took grief to her room, as on that night
after he left her, she had taken love. No sign betrayed to the house
her disaster; the journal on the floor, and the smell of the burnt milk
which had boiled over, revealed nothing. After all, she was but one of
a thousand hearts which spent that moonlit night in agony. Each night,
year in, year out, a thousand faces were buried in pillows to smother
that first awful sense of desolation, and grope for the secret
spirit-place where bereaved souls go, to receive some feeble touch of
healing from knowledge of each other's trouble....

In the morning she got up from her sleepless bed, seemed to eat her
breakfast, and went off to her hospital. There she washed up plates and
dishes, with a stony face, dark under the eyes.

The news came to Pierson in a letter from Thirza, received at
lunch-time. He read it with a dreadful aching. Poor, poor little Nollie!
What an awful trouble for her! And he, too, went about his work with
the nightmare thought that he had to break the news to her that evening.
Never had he felt more lonely, more dreadfully in want of the mother of
his children. She would have known how to soothe, how to comfort. On her
heart the child could have sobbed away grief. And all that hour, from
seven to eight, when he was usually in readiness to fulfil the functions
of God's substitute to his parishioners, he spent in prayer of his own,
for guidance how to inflict and heal this blow. When, at last, Noel
came, he opened the door to her himself, and, putting back the hair
from her forehead, said: "Come in here a moment, my darling!" Noel
followed him into the study, and sat down. "I know already, Daddy."
Pierson was more dismayed by this stoicism than he would have been by
any natural out burst. He stood, timidly stroking her hair, murmuring
to her what he had said to Gratian, and to so many others in these days:
"There is no death; look forward to seeing him again; God is merciful"
And he marvelled at the calmness of that pale face--so young.

"You are very brave, my child!" he said.

"There's nothing else to be, is there?"

"Isn't there anything I can do for you, Nollie?"

"No, Daddy."

"When did you see it?"

"Last night." She had already known for twenty-four hours without
telling him!

"Have you prayed, my darling?"

"No."

"Try, Nollie!"

"No."

"Ah, try!"