pain to think how I had pictured Alec here, living the same free and beautiful life, tasting the same innocent pleasures, with the bright, sweet world opening upon him.  In that calm, sunny afternoon, life seemed a strange phantasmal business, and I myself a revenant from some thin, unsubstantial world.  A door opened, and an old Don, well known to me in those days, hardly altered, it seemed, came out and trotted across the court, looking suspiciously to left and right as he used to do.  Had he been doing the same thing ever since, reading the same books, talking the same innocent gossip?  I had not the heart to greet him, and he passed me by unrecognising.  We peeped into the hall through the screen.  I could see where I used to sit, the same dark pictures looking down.  We went to the chapel, with its noble classical woodwork, the great carved panels, the angels’ heads, the huge, stately reredos.  Some one, thank God, was playing softly on the organ, and we sate to listen.  The sweet music flowed over my sad heart in a healing tide.  Yes, it was not meaningless, after all, this strange life, with the good years shining in their rainbow halo, even though the path led into darkness and formless shadow.  I seemed to look back on it all, as the traveller on the hill looks out from the skirts of the cloud upon the sunny valley beneath him.  It all worked together, said the delicate rising strain, outlining itself above the soft thunder of the pedals, into something high and grave and beautiful; it all ended in the peace of God.  I sate there, with wife and child, a pilgrim faring onwards, tasting of love and life and sorrow, weary of the way, but still—­yes, I could say that—­still hopeful.  In that moment even my bitter loss had something beautiful about it.  It was there, the bright episode of my dear Alec’s life, the memory of the beloved years together.  Maggie, seeing something in my face that she was glad to see, put her hand in mine, and the tears rose to my eyes, while I smiled at Maud; the burden fell off my shoulder for a moment, and something seemed as it were to touch me and point onwards.  The music with a dying fall came to a soft close; the rich light fell on desk and canopy; the old tombs glimmered in the dusty air.  We went out in silence; and then there came back to me, in the old dark court, with its ivied corners, its trim grass plots, the sense that I was still a part of it all, that the old life was not dead, but stored up like a garnered treasure in the rich and guarded past.  Not by detachment or aloofness from happiness and warmth and life are our victories won.  That had been the dark temptation, the shadow of my loss, to believe that in so sad and strange an existence the only hope was to stand apart from it all, not to care too much, not to love too closely.  That was false, utterly false; a bare and grim philosophy, a timid sauntering.  Rather it was better to clasp all things close, to love passionately, to desire infinitely, to yield oneself gladly and joyfully to every deep and true emotion; not greedily and luxuriously, flinging aside the crumpled husk that had given up its sweetness; but tenderly and gently, holding out one’s arms to everything pure and noble, trusting that behind all there did indeed beat a great and fatherly heart, that loved one better than one dreamed.