Mr. Loftus rose, and paced up and down the room. She dared not look at him.
Presently he stopped, and, with his face turned away, said with emotion:
'But the moon is a dreary place if it is seen as it is, with its extinct volcanoes and its ice-fields. Nothing lives there. The fire in it is burnt out, and there is snow over the ashes. It is only in the eyes of a child that the moon is bright. We elders know that it is dark and desolate.'
Lady Pierpoint was awed. She had known Mr. Loftus for twenty years. He had been kind to her in the early years of her widowhood, and in the later ones had helped on her boys by his influence in high quarters. She had often told him of her difficulties, but she had never till now heard him speak of himself.
Her great admiration for him, which was of a humbler kind than Sibyl's, led her to say: 'It is not only in the child's eyes that the moon is bright.'
She might have added with truth that in her own middle-aged eyes it was bright, too.
'I greatly honoured you when Sibyl told me about it,' she continued, after a long pause. 'It is because I have entire trust in you that I have told you the truth about this poor child, who is as dear to me as my own, though I hope my own will face life more bravely. Should you, after reflection, feel able to do her this—this—great kindness, I hope you will come and stay with us at Abergower for Whitsuntide. But—I shall not expect you, and I shall not mention to anyone that I have asked you.'