But always the sick man returned to the same poignant theme; that Ferlie was his and the barrier between them a figment of her imagination.
"Do not distress yourself over that delusion either," Jellybrand implored her.
"No," said Ferlie at last, shocked by revelations of the restraint it had been Cyprian's part to endure. "That is not delusion. That is Truth.... And now you know...."
"My poor child," he answered, "I ought to have understood.... I am not very clever, you see. I only w-went to a cheap school. My mother w-was a w-widow and did mending for Colonel Maddock at one time, in order to give me my chance. He w-was very good to us. But I only got through my exams by much prayer.... My mother prayed too, and that helped. I w-was able to visit her as an ordained priest before she died.... I, wh-wo w-was so stupid and—and not very strong. W-we both felt that God had w-worked a miracle."
She saw that he was shying away from her admission, eager to show that he claimed no right to pry into more than she willed to confide in him.
It was inevitable then that she should make known to him the circumstances which had driven them to seek temporary refuge at some spot where they would not be hampered by the living lie represented in their lives side by side.
"And even here," she finished pathetically, "there was you to deceive."
He thought it all out for some while before his slow wits responded gropingly.
"You see, though God understands, His 'little ones' can't. And it is forbidden to cause them to stumble.... And so again... There were only three magi w-who came across the thirsty desert in their w-wisdom to the Cradle. But many shepherds clustered about it, simple and adoring, w-who imagined the star to have been lit in the Heavens that very night by some supernatural hand. The w-wise men did not seek to convince them, by astronomical data, that it had probably existed before the w-world began. They merely followed them and adored."
"But they did not accept the shepherds' view," objected Ferlie. "They reserved their own. What matter, if it was the same star and led them to the same Cradle?"