Ah! if I could!"

All that in life had been to him unknown, of venture and wild savour;
all the emotion he had stifled; the swift Pan he had denied; the sharp
fruits, the burning suns, the dark pools, the unearthly moonlight, which
were not of God--all came with the breath of that old song, and the look
on the girl's face. And he covered his eyes.

Noel's hand tugged at his arm. "Isn't beauty terribly alive," she
murmured, "like a lovely person? it makes you ache to kiss it."

His lips felt parched. "There is a beauty beyond all that," he said
stubbornly.

"Where?"

"Holiness, duty, faith. O Nollie, my love!" But Noel's hand tightened on
his arm.

"Shall I tell you what I should like?" she whispered. "To take God's
hand and show Him things. I'm certain He's not seen everything."

A shudder went through Pierson, one of those queer sudden shivers, which
come from a strange note in a voice, or a new sharp scent or sight.

"My dear, what things you say!"

"But He hasn't, and it's time He did. We'd creep, and peep, and see it
all for once, as He can't in His churches. Daddy, oh! Daddy! I can't
bear it any more; to think of them being killed on a night like this;
killed and killed so that they never see it all again--never see
it--never see it!" She sank down, and covered her face with her arms.

"I can't, I can't! Oh! take it all away, the cruelty! Why does it
come--why the stars and the flowers, if God doesn't care any more than
that?"

Horribly affected he stood bending over her, stroking her head. Then the
habit of a hundred death-beds helped him. "Come, Nollie! This life is
but a minute. We must all die."

"But not they--not so young!" She clung to his knees, and looked up.
"Daddy, I don't want you to go; promise me to come back!"

The childishness of those words brought back his balance.

"My dear sweetheart, of course! Come, Nollie, get up. The sun's been too
much for you."

Noel got up, and put her hands on her father's shoulders. "Forgive
me for all my badness, and all my badness to come, especially all my
badness to come!"

Pierson smiled. "I shall always forgive you, Nollie; but there won't
be--there mustn't be any badness to come. I pray God to keep you, and
make you like your mother."

"Mother never had a devil, like you and me."

He was silent from surprise. How did this child know the devil of wild
feeling he had fought against year after year; until with the many years
he had felt it