w--even then--you would
find excuses, plead for mercy, as you have just now. Another, those
flowers. If I had found--well--what I might have found, oh! he should
have had the stick or the dog-whip without stint. But one doesn't
practise devil-worship with flowers. It seemed to me some craving after
beauty was there, as if the poor germ of a soul groped out of the
darkness towards what is fair and sweet. I dared not hound it back into
the darkness, close down any dim aspiration after God it might have. So I
left its pitiful joss-house inviolate, the moan of the wind and sighing
of the great reed-beds making music for such strange rites of worship as
have been, or may be, practised within. Any god is better than
none--that's my creed, at least. And to defile any man's god--however
trumpery--unless you're amazingly sure you've a better one to offer him
in place of it is to sin against the Holy Ghost."

Faircloth rose to his feet.

"Time's up"--he said. "I must go. Here is farewell to the most beautiful
day of my life.--But see, Damaris"--

And he knelt down, in front of her.

"Leave your shoes and stockings cast away on the Bar and thereby open the
door--for some people--on to the kingdom of heaven, if you like. But
don't, don't, if you've the smallest mercy for my peace of mind ever
wander about there again alone. I've a superstition against it. Something
unhappy will come of it. It isn't right. It isn't safe. When--when I
called you and you answered me through the mist, I had a horrible fear I
was too late. You see I care--and the caring, after to-day, very
certainly will not grow less. Take somebody, one of your women, always,
with you. Promise me never to be out by yourself."

Wondering, inexpressibly touched, Damaris put her hands on his shoulders.
His hands sprang to cover them.

"Of course, I promise," she said.

And, closing her eyes, put up her lips to be kissed.

Then the rattle of the glass door on to the garden as it shut. In the
room a listening stillness, a great all-invading emptiness. Finally
Hordle, with the tea-tray, and--

"Mrs. Cooper, if it isn't troubling you, Miss, would be glad to have the
house-books to pay, as she's walking up the village after tea."

CHAPTER XII

CONCERNING A SERMON WHICH NEVER WAS PREACHED AND OTHER MATTERS OF
LOCAL INTEREST

Before passing on to more dignified matters, that period of nine days
demands to be noted during which the inhabitants of Deadham, a