"Did she teach you that prayer?" asked Kit demurely.
"Bah! blurry young tarry-breeks!" muttered the other; and curling on the floor, his rolled jacket beneath his head, the old campaigner was off to sleep, Polly fair and faithful beside him.
II
The boy had the house to himself, and the world too. At last he could retire once more upon the Love within him.
He could pray—without words.
The sea was a plain shining beneath the moon. Against the light, inky sycamores ruffled, stars entangled in their leaves. On the shingle- bank the bear-skinn'd sentinel showed black against white waters.
The plain beauty of the night stole upon his mind. All was jewelled silence, save for the jar-r-r of the familiar goat-sucker from the foot of the hills, and the wash of the sea.
How calm it was, how strong, how radiant!
He had been far away. Now he was drawing near again. It was his once more. He possessed it all, all, all, and loved it as his own.
All day he had been the prisoner of his own distraught senses. And how comfortable it was, after the darkness of that life which is death, to resume the large loveliness of Life Unending.