Prayer is power within us to communicate with the desired beyond our thirsts.  The goodness of the dear good mother gone was in him for assurance of a breast of goodness to receive her, whatever the nature of the eternal secret may be.  The good life gone lives on in the mind; the bad has but a life in the body, and that not lasting,—­it extends, dispreads, it worms away, it perishes.  Need we more to bid the mind perceive through obstructive flesh the God who reigns, a devil vanquished?  Be certain that it is the pure mind we set to perceive.  The God discerned in thought is another than he of the senses.  And let the prayer be as a little fountain.  Rising on a spout, from dread of the hollow below, the prayer may be prolonged in words begetting words, and have a pulse of fervour:  the spirit of it has fallen after the first jet.  That is the delirious energy of our craving, which has no life in our souls.  We do not get to any heaven by renouncing the Mother we spring from; and when there is an eternal secret for us, it is befit to believe that Earth knows, to keep near her, even in our utmost aspirations.

Weyburn still knelt.  He was warned to quit the formal posture of an exhausted act by the thought, that he had come to reflect upon how he might be useful to his boys in a like calamity.

Having risen, he became aware, that for some time of his kneeling Aminta’s hand had been on his head, and they had raised their souls in unison.  It was a soul’s link.  They gazed together on the calm, rapt features.  They passed from the room.

‘I cannot thank you,’ he said.

‘Oh no; I have the reason for gratitude,’ said she.  ’I have learnt to know and love her, and hope I may imitate when my time is near.’

“She . . . . at the last?’

’Peacefully; no pain.  The breath had not left her very long before you came.’

’I said I cannot; but I must—­

‘Do not.’

‘Not in speech, then.’

They went into the tasteful little sitting-room below, where the stillness closed upon them as a consciousness of loss.

‘You have comforted her each day,’ he said.

‘It has been my one happiness.’

‘I could not wish for better than for her to have known you.’

’Say that for me.  I have gained.  She left her last words for you with me.  They were love, love . . . pride in her son:  thanks to God for having been thought worthy to give him birth.’

‘She was one of the noble women of earth.’

’She was your mother.  Let me not speak any more.  I think I will now go.  I am rarely given to these—­’

The big drops were falling.

‘You have not ordered your carriage?’

‘It brings me here.  I find my way home.’

‘Alone?’

‘I like the independence.’

‘At night, too!’

’Nothing harmed me.  Now it is daylight.  A letter arrived for you from High Brent this morning.  I forgot to bring it.  Yesterday two of your pupils called here.  Martha saw them.’