He had not many possessions; shabby clothes--with an air to them;
shabby books--that shone with their inner grace. The books took
longest, and when he had finished packing them, it was dawn. He went
to his window and watched the slow coming of the light, and in that
silent, gray hour, he felt himself more alone than he had ever been.
Everything seemed to have been stripped from him; this town where he
had been born, and where generations of his family had been born before
him; his friends; the little room, so dismantled now, that for years
had been his home-place; all these--and his hope of happy love. He
remembered how, in his early, romantic boyhood, he had hoped for
that--for happy love; and now that hope was gone and everything was
gone with it. Everything was gone because of Sheila; he had given up
everything that she might be safe, that she might have peace--the
peace, at least, of being unafraid. He thought of her now with a calm
tenderness--as if, having given so much for her peace, he had somehow
gained peace for himself, too. And then he thought of Charlotte, and
it was for Charlotte, not for Sheila, that tears--a man's slow,
difficult tears--forced themselves into his eyes.

But Charlotte was strong. It was her strength that had roused strength
in him; strength to leave the garden, to escape the insinuating,
ensnaring sweetness of the night and go forth into the daylight world
of men.

And just then the first ray of sunlight touched his window sill,
touched it and stole within the room. The day had come; and though he
was forty-six years old and not born for fighting, a sudden elation
seized upon Peter's sad heart--as if the finger of the sunlight had
touched it, too.

CHAPTER XVII

Sheila had thought herself acquainted with loneliness in the days
immediately following her grandmother's death--days when she had had
the consolation and companionship of Peter's frequent visits; but after
Peter left Shadyville, she knew loneliness indeed. Charlotte had taken
flight to Paris soon after Peter's departure, and there remained in
Sheila's small world not one to comprehend the depths of her, the real
needs and desires and aspirations of her mind and spirit.

To all outward seeming, her life flowed on in its usual channels; she
occupied herself with her housewifely duties, with her care for her
husband's and child's well-being; she exchanged visits with her
neighbors and went to afternoon tea-part