oofs and beat of
passing footsteps had become infrequent, while the roar of the mighty
city had dwindled to a murmur, as of an ebbing tide upon a shallow,
sand-strewn beach. The after-light of the sunset, walking the horizon,
beneath the Pole star from west to east, broadened upward now towards
the zenith. Even here, in the heart of London, the day broke with a
spacious solemnity. Richard raised himself, and, sitting up, blew out
the candles placed on the table at the bedside.

"Mother," he said, "will you let in the morning?"

Lady Calmady was pale from her long vigil, and her unspoken, yet
searching, emotion. She appeared very tall, ghostlike even, in her
soft, white raiment, as she moved across and drew up the sucking blind.
Above the gray parapets of the houses, and the ranks of contorted
chimney-pots, the loveliness of the summer dawn grew wide. Warm amber
shaded through gradations of exquisite and nameless colour into blue.
While, across this last, lay horizontal lines of fringed,
semi-transparent, opalescent cloud. To Katherine those heavenly blue
interspaces spoke of peace, of the stilling of all strife, when the
tragic, yet superb, human story should at last be fully told and God be
all in all. She was very tired. The struggle was so prolonged. Her soul
cried out for rest. And then she reminded herself, almost sternly, that
the kingdom of God and the peace of it is no matter of time or of
place, but is within the devout believer, ever present, immediate,
possessing his or her soul, and by that soul in turn possessed. Just
then the sparrows, roosting in the garden of the square, awoke with
manifold and vociferous chirping and chattering. The voice from the bed
called to her.

"Mother," it said imperatively, "come to me. You are not angry at what
I have told you? You understand? You will find her for me?"

Lady Calmady turned away from the open window and the loveliness of the
summer dawn. She was less tired somehow. God was with her, so she could
not be otherwise than hopeful. Moreover, the world had proved itself
very kind towards her son. It would not deny him this last request,
surely?

"My dearest, I think I have found her already," Lady Calmady answered.

Yet, even as she spoke, she faltered a little, recognising the energy
and strength manifest in the young man's countenance, remembering his
late discourse, and the pent-up fires of his nature to which that
discourse had borne only too eloquent testi