grave by the church wall--the boy's grave."

"Oh!" said Uniacke, with sudden coldness.

"Do you know, Uniacke, it seems--it seems to me that the gravestone has
been defaced."

"Defaced! Why, what could make such an idea come to you?" exclaimed the
clergyman. "Defaced! But--"

"There is a gap in the inscription after the word 'Jack,'" the painter
said slowly, fixing a piercing and morose glance on his companion. "And
it seems to me that some blunt instrument has been at work there."

"Oh, there was always a gap there," said Uniacke hastily, touching the
letter that lay in his pocket, and feeling, strangely, as if the contact
fortified that staggering pilgrim on the path of lies--his conscience.
"There was always a gap. It was a whim of the Skipper's--a mad whim."

"But I understood he was sane when his shipmate was buried? You said
so."

"Sane? Yes, in comparison with what he is now. But one could not argue
with him. He was distraught with grief."

Sir Graham looked at Uniacke with the heavy suspicion of a sick man, but
he said nothing more on the subject. He turned as if to go out. Uniacke
stopped him.

"You are going to paint?"

"Yes."

Again Uniacke thought of the doctor's advice.

"Sir Graham," he said, speaking with obvious hesitation, "I--I would not
work."

"Why?"

"You are not fit to bear any fatigue at present. Creation will
inevitably retard your recovery."

"I am not ill in body, and work is the only panacea for a burdened mind.
If it cannot bring me happiness, at least--"

"Happiness!" Uniacke interrupted. "And what may not bring that! Why, Sir
Graham, even death--should that be regarded as a curse? May not death
bring the greatest happiness of all?"

The painter's forehead contracted, but the clergyman continued with
gathering eagerness and fervour:

"Often when I pray beside a little dead child, or--or a young lad, and
hear the mother weeping, I feel more keenly than at any other time the
fact that blessings descend upon the earth. The child is taken in
innocence. The lad is bereft of the power to sin. And their souls are
surely at peace."

"At peace," said the painter heavily. "Yes, that is something. But the
mother--the mother weeps, you say."

"Human love, the most beautiful thing in the world must still be
earth-bound, must still be selfish."

"But--"

"Sir Graham, I'll confess to you even this, that on Sunday evening,
when, after the service, we sang that hymn, 'Lead, Kin