The rain was now steady; from every tree a fountain poured.  So cool and easy had his mind become that he was speculating on what kind of shelter the birds could find, and how the butterflies and moths saved their coloured wings from washing.  Folded close they might hang under a leaf, he thought.  Lovingly he looked into the dripping darkness of the coverts on each side, as one of their children.  He was next musing on a strange sensation he experienced.  It ran up one arm with an indescribable thrill, but communicated nothing to his heart.  It was purely physical, ceased for a time, and recommenced, till he had it all through his blood, wonderfully thrilling.  He grew aware that the little thing he carried in his breast was licking his hand there.  The small rough tongue going over and over the palm of his hand produced the strange sensation he felt.  Now that he knew the cause, the marvel ended; but now that he knew the cause, his heart was touched and made more of it.  The gentle scraping continued without intermission as on he walked.  What did it say to him?  Human tongue could not have said so much just then.

A pale grey light on the skirts of the flying tempest displayed the dawn.  Richard was walking hurriedly.  The green drenched weeds lay all about in his path, bent thick, and the forest drooped glimmeringly.  Impelled as a man who feels a revelation mounting obscurely to his brain, Richard was passing one of those little forest-chapels, hung with votive wreaths, where the peasant halts to kneel and pray.  Cold, still, in the twilight it stood, rain-drops pattering round it.  He looked within, and saw the Virgin holding her Child.  He moved by.  But not many steps had he gone ere his strength went out of him, and he shuddered.  What was it?  He asked not.  He was in other hands.  Vivid as lightning the Spirit of Life illumined him.  He felt in his heart the cry of his child, his darling’s touch.  With shut eyes he saw them both.  They drew him from the depths; they led him a blind and tottering man.  And as they led him he had a sense of purification so sweet he shuddered again and again.

When he looked out from his trance on the breathing world, the small birds hopped and chirped:  warm fresh sunlight was over all the hills.  He was on the edge of the forest, entering a plain clothed with ripe corn under a spacious morning sky.

CHAPTER XLIII

They heard at Raynham that Richard was coming.  Lucy had the news first in a letter from Ripton Thompson, who met him at Bonn.  Ripton did not say that he had employed his vacation holiday on purpose to use his efforts to induce his dear friend to return to his wife; and finding Richard already on his way, of course Ripton said nothing to him, but affected to be travelling for his pleasure like any cockney.  Richard also wrote to her.  In case she should have gone to the sea he directed her to send word to his hotel that he might not lose an hour.  His letter was sedate in tone, very sweet to her.  Assisted by the faithful female Berry, she was conquering an Aphorist.