Unwonted silence reigned.  He tapped on the nursery door.  It was deserted; he passed through to Noel’s room; but that too was empty.  The wardrobe stood open as if it had been hastily ransacked, and her dressing-table was bare.  In alarm he went to the bell and pulled it sharply.  The old-fashioned ring of it jingled out far below.  The parlour-maid came up.

“Where are Miss Noel and Nurse, Susan?”

“I didn’t know you were in, sir.  Miss Noel left me this note to give you.  They—­I—­”

Pierson stopped her with his hand.  “Thank you, Susan; get me some tea, please.”  With the note unopened in his hand, he waited till she was gone.  His head was going round, and he sat down on the side of Noel’s bed to read:  “Darling daddy,

“The man who came this morning told me of what is going to happen.  I simply won’t have it.  I’m sending Nurse and baby down to Kestrel at once, and going to Leila’s for the night, until I’ve made up my mind what to do.  I knew it was a mistake my coming back.  I don’t care what happens to me, but I won’t have you hurt.  I think it’s hateful of people to try and injure you for my fault.  I’ve had to borrow money from Susan—­six pounds.  Oh!  Daddy dear, forgive me.

“Your loving
“Nollie.”

He read it with unutterable relief; at all events he knew where she was—­poor, wilful, rushing, loving-hearted child; knew where she was, and could get at her.  After his bath and some tea, he would go to Leila’s and bring her back.  Poor little Nollie, thinking that by just leaving his house she could settle this deep matter!  He did not hurry, feeling decidedly exhausted, and it was nearly eight before he set out, leaving a message for Gratian, who did not as a rule come in from her hospital till past nine.

The day was still glowing, and now, in the cool of evening, his refreshed senses soaked up its beauty.  ‘God has so made this world,’ he thought, ’that, no matter what our struggles and sufferings, it’s ever a joy to live when the sun shines, or the moon is bright, or the night starry.  Even we can’t spoil it.’  In Regent’s Park the lilacs and laburnums were still in bloom though June had come, and he gazed at them in passing, as a lover might at his lady.  His conscience pricked him suddenly.  Mrs. Mitchett and the dark-eyed girl she had brought to him on New Year’s Eve, the very night he had learned of his own daughter’s tragedy—­had he ever thought of them since?  How had that poor girl fared?  He had been too impatient of her impenetrable mood.  What did he know of the hearts of others, when he did not even know his own, could not rule his feelings of anger and revolt, had not guided his own daughter into the waters of safety!  And Leila!  Had he not been too censorious in thought?  How powerful, how strange was this instinct of sex, which hovered and swooped on lives, seized them, bore them away, then dropped them exhausted and defenceless!  Some munition-wagons, painted a dull grey, lumbered past, driven by sunburned youths in drab.  Life-force, Death-force—­was it all one; the great unknowable momentum from which there was but the one escape, in the arms of their Heavenly Father?  Blake’s little old stanzas came into his mind: