dly Light,' I
thought would it not be a very beautiful thing if the body mouldering
beneath that stone in the churchyard yonder were indeed the body of--of
your wonder-child."

"Uniacke!"

"Yes, yes. Don't you remember how he looked up from his sordid misery to
the rainbow?"

"How can I ever forget it?"

"Does that teach you nothing?"

There was a silence. Then the painter said:

"Death may be beautiful, but only after life has been beautiful. For it
is beautiful to live as Jack would have lived."

"Is living--somewhere," interposed Uniacke quickly.

"Perhaps. I can't tell. But I hear the mother weeping. I hear the mother
weeping."

That night Uniacke lay long awake. He heard the sea faintly. Was it not
weeping too? It seemed to him in that dark hour as if one power alone
was common to all people and to all things--the power to mourn.

Next day, despite Uniacke's renewed protests, Sir Graham began to paint
steadily. The clergyman dared not object too strongly. He had no right.
And brain-sick men are bad to deal with. He could only watch over Sir
Graham craftily and be with him as much as possible, always hoping that
the painting frenzy would desert him, and that he would find out for
himself that his health was too poor to endure any strain of labour.

The moon was now past its second quarter, and the weather continued cold
and clear. Sir Graham and Uniacke went out several times by night to the
belfry of the church, and the painter observed the light effects through
the narrow window. In the daytime he made various studies from memory of
these effects. And presently Uniacke began to grow more reconciled to
this labour of which--prompted by the doctor's letter--he had at first
been so much afraid. For it really seemed that toil could be a tonic to
this man as to many other men. Sir Graham spoke less of little Jack. He
was devoured by the fever of creation. In the evenings he mused on his
picture, puffing at his pipe. He no longer continually displayed his
morbid sorrow, or sought to discuss at length the powers of despair.
Uniacke was beginning to feel happier about him, even to doubt the
doctor's wisdom in denouncing work as a danger, when something happened
which filled him with a vague apprehension.

The mad Skipper, whom nothing attracted, wandering vacantly, according
to his sad custom, about the graveyard and in the church, one day
ascended to the belfry, in which Sir Graham sat at work on a study f