“I think you’ve been a lady all along, Co-rinne.”

And then the bands about Kern’s heart snapped, and she could cry....

The storm came suddenly, like the bursting of a dam.  A bad time certainly; it was hard to be torn so, yet to make no cry or sound; in any case, distressing to others.  And surely salt water couldn’t be good for this lovely cloth, where her face lay....

Yet one doesn’t think overmuch of things like that, when the barriers on the great common go toppling down.  And there was Sisterhood there all the time....

And above the stillness and the racking, Kern heard his beautiful lady’s voice once more, speaking to her own heart now, so low, oh, so broken: 

“Ah, but he was teaching me....”

And then Kern must go quickly, lest she disgrace herself forever; screaming aloud as she had heard women who were not ladies....

The girl was gone, her head between her hands.  And Cally Heth stood alone in the more than churchly stillness.

She was breaking up within.  The drowned being stirred to life, with multiplying pains.  And yet, in giving comfort, she had mysteriously taken it.  There came to her a fortitude that was not of death.

* * * * *

No sound penetrated to the silent waiting-room.

The two men there spoke little.  They had talked what they had to say.  Sam O’Neill looked at his watch; it was twenty-five minutes to six.  And, a moment later, Director Pond came up the steps, entered and said: 

“Bloom will be here at six o’clock.”

They spoke briefly of this.  The friends of the neighborhood were to be admitted; it was agreed that this should be arranged for to-morrow morning.  Pond then said: 

“Is Miss Heth in there?”

Mr. Dayne said that she was.  And Sam O’Neill, who had not known who the visitor was, first looked startled and then lapsed off into heavy musings....

The Director sat down on a chair by the door.  His strong face looked tired.

“Won’t you, a little later,” he said to Mr. Dayne, “go down and say a few words to the people outside?  They’d appreciate it.”

The parson, biting his crisp mustache, said that he would.

Pond sat absently eyeing the pile of men’s clothes beside him; and after a time he asked what they were there for.  Mr. Dayne seemed less and less disposed for conversation.  So it was Sam who told, in a somewhat halting fashion, of the coming of the crows....

Pond, whom no one could have taken for a sentimentalist, made no comment whatever.  Presently he felt Mr. Dayne’s eye upon him.

“Well, would it work out, do you think?”

The Director shook his head slightly, disclaiming authority.  But after a time he said: 

“Not as long as men’ll try it only once every two thousand years.”

The parson’s eyes dreamed off.