e had always imagined it as a gradual approach. He had fancied that if
the lamentation of the child ever died out of his haunted life it would
fade away as the sound of the sea fades on a long strand when the
whispering tide goes down. Day by day, night by night, her crying would
grow less poignant, less distinct in a long diminuendo, as if the
restless spirit withdrew slowly farther and farther away, till the cry
became a whisper, then a broken murmur, then--nothing. This abrupt
cessation of persecution, this violent change from something that had
seemed like menace to perfect immunity from trouble, was a fact that
Maurice had never thought of as a possibility. He had grown to believe
that Lily's presence in his home intensified the terror from which he
suffered, certainly. But he had never supposed that her removal from him
would lay the spirit entirely to rest. And she said that it was not at
rest. How could she know that? And if it were not at rest, in what
region was it pursuing its weird activity? Whither had it gone? He
wondered long and deeply. And then he resolved to wonder no more. Peace
had come to him at last. He would not break it by questioning the reason
of it. He would accept it blindly, joyfully. Man blots the sunshine out
of life by asking "Why?"

Time passed on. Brayfield had gossiped, marvelled and sunk into a sort
of apathy of unrewarded and quiescent curiosity. The Canon pursued his
life at the Rectory. Maurice visited his patients and continued
unremittingly his medical researches. The immunity he now enjoyed
gradually wrought a great change in him. He emerged from prison into
the outer air. His health rapidly improved. His heavy eyes grew bright.
His mind was active and alert. He was a new man. The darkness faded
round him. He saw the light at last. For the silence endured. And at
last he even forgot to listen, at dawn or in the silent hours of the
night, for the cry of the child. Even the memory of it began to grow
faint within his heart. So rapidly does man forget his troubles when he
still has youth and the years are not heavy on him.

Yet Maurice often thought of Lily. And now that he was no longer bowed
under the tyranny of a shattered nervous system he felt a new tenderness
for her. He recalled her devotion and no longer linked her with his
persecution. He remembered her unselfishness. He wished her back again.
And then--he remembered all his misery, and that, with her, it went. And
his se