“You have been a great comfort to her, Mr. Chamberlayne,” said Kesiah, breaking the silence at last.

A low sound, half a sob, half a sigh, escaped the lawyer’s lips.  “A spirit like hers needs no other prop than her Creator,” he replied.

“It is when one expects her to break down that she shows her wonderful fortitude,” added Kesiah.

“Her consolation now is the thought that she never considered either her health or her happiness where her son was concerned,” pursued the old man.  “She clings pathetically to the memory that she urged him to return to Europe, and that he chose to remain a few weeks for the pleasure of hunting.  Not a breath stains the purity of her utter selflessness.  To witness such spiritual beauty is a divine inspiration.”

For the last few hours, ever since a messenger had met him, half way on the Applegate road, with the news of Jonathan’s death, he had laboured philosophically to reconcile such a tragedy with his preconceived belief that he inhabited the best of all possible worlds.  Only when suffering obtruded brutally into his immediate surroundings, was it necessary for him to set about resolving the problem of existence—­for, like most hereditary optimists, he did not borrow trouble from his neighbours.  A famine or an earthquake at a little distance appeared to him a puerile obstacle to put forward against his belief in the perfection of the planetary scheme; but when his eyes rested upon the martyred saintliness of Mrs. Gay’s expression, he was conscious that his optimism tottered for an instant, and was almost overthrown.  That a just and tender Deity should inflict pain upon so lovely a being was incomprehensible to his chivalrous spirit.

“Has any one told her about Blossom?” asked Molly.

Kesiah shook her head.  “Mr. Chamberlayne feels that it would be cruel.  She knows so little about Jonathan’s affairs that we may be able to keep his marriage from her knowledge if she leaves Jordan’s Journey a few days after the funeral.”

“In spite of it all I know that Jonathan hated lies,” said Molly almost fiercely.

“Our first thought must be to spare her,” answered the lawyer.  “It was her son’s endeavour always, just as it was my poor old friend Jonathan’s.  If you will come with me into the library,” he added to Kesiah, “we will take a few minutes to look over the papers I have arranged.”

They moved away, walking side by side with halting steps, as though they were crushed by age, and yet were trying to the last to keep up an appearance of activity.  For a minute Molly gazed after them.  Then her eyes wandered to the light that shimmered over the meadows, and descending the stone steps into the side-garden, she walked slowly through the miniature maze, where the paths were buried deep in wine-coloured leaves which had drifted from the half bared trees on the lawn.  Abel was coming, she knew, and she waited for him in a stillness that seemed akin to