ay that; and went on, "What is deepest and most living in you . . . that
is what must go on living."

He released one hand and held it out towards her as though he were
taking an oath.

CHAPTER XXV

MARISE'S COMING-OF-AGE

July 23. Dawn

Even after the old child, Agnes, had been soothed and reassured, over
and over, till she had fallen asleep, and the house lay profoundly
quiet, Marise felt not the slightest approach of drowsiness or even of
fatigue. She lay down on her bed, but could not close her eyes. They
remained wide open, looking not at a wild confusion of incoherent images
as they had the night before, but straight into blackness and vacancy.

It was strange how from the brawling turmoil of impressions which had
shouted and cried out to her the night before, and had wrought her to
frenzy by their insane insistence, not an echo reached her now. Her mind
was as silent and intent as the old house, keeping its last mute watch
over its mistress. Intent on what? She did not know. On something that
was waiting for her, on something for which she was waiting.

In an immense hush, like the dusky silence in a cathedral aisle or in
the dark heart of the woods, there was something there waiting for her
to go and find it.

That hush had fallen on her at the sight of Neale's face, at the sound
of his voice, as he had looked at her and spoken to her, at the last,
just before he went away back to the children. Those furiously racing
pulses of hers had been stilled by it into this steady rhythm which now
beat quietly through her. The clashing thoughts which had risen with
malevolent swiftness, like high, battling shadowy genii, and had torn
her in pieces as they fought back and forth, were stilled as though a
master-word had been spoken which they must all obey.

The old house, silent under the stars, lay quiet in its vigil about her,
but slept no more than she; the old house which had been a part of her
childhood and her youth now watched over her entry into another part of
her journey.

For as she lay there, wide-awake, watching the light of the candle, she
felt that she knew what was waiting for her, what she must go to find.
It was her maturity.

And as she lay quiet, her ears ringing in the solemn hush which Neale's
look and voice had laid about her, she felt slowly coming into her, like
a tide from a great ocean, the strength to go forward. She lay still,
watching the candle-flame, hovering above the