at's the one crime he'll never forgive you."

She faltered, "Who--who forgives?"

"Gerald."

At the sound of his name she slid forward, and all her dishonesty left
her. She acknowledged that life's meaning had vanished. Bending down,
she kissed the footprint. "How can he forgive me?" she sobbed. "Where
has he gone to? You could never dream such an awful thing. He couldn't
see me though I opened the door--wide--plenty of light; and then he
could not remember the things that should comfort him. He wasn't a--he
wasn't ever a great reader, and he couldn't remember the things. The
rector tried, and he couldn't--I came, and I couldn't--" She could not
speak for tears. Rickie did not check her. He let her accuse herself,
and fate, and Herbert, who had postponed their marriage. She might have
been a wife six months; but Herbert had spoken of self-control and of
all life before them. He let her kiss the footprints till their marks
gave way to the marks of her lips. She moaned. "He is gone--where is
he?" and then he replied quite quietly, "He is in heaven."

She begged him not to comfort her; she could not bear it.

"I did not come to comfort you. I came to see that you mind. He is in
heaven, Agnes. The greatest thing is over."

Her hatred was lulled. She murmured, "Dear Rickie!" and held up her hand
to him. Through her tears his meagre face showed as a seraph's who spoke
the truth and forbade her to juggle with her soul. "Dear Rickie--but for
the rest of my life what am I to do?"

"Anything--if you remember that the greatest thing is over."

"I don't know you," she said tremulously. "You have grown up in a
moment. You never talked to us, and yet you understand it all. Tell me
again--I can only trust you--where he is."

"He is in heaven."

"You are sure?"

It puzzled her that Rickie, who could scarcely tell you the time without
a saving clause, should be so certain about immortality.

VI

He did not stop for the funeral. Mr. Pembroke thought that he had a bad
effect on Agnes, and prevented her from acquiescing in the tragedy as
rapidly as she might have done. As he expressed it, "one must not court
sorrow," and he hinted to the young man that they desired to be alone.

Rickie went back to the Silts.

He was only there a few days. As soon as term opened he returned to
Cambridge, for which he longed passionately. The journey thither was now
familiar to him, and he took pleasure in each landmark. The fair valle