"Hush!" Lily said. "Don't fight your own peace, Maurice."
"Fight it—no, but I can scarcely believe in it. Lately the—it has been so ceaseless, so poignant. Lily, I have had a fancy that you alone could be my saviour. If it is so! Ah, but how can that be?"
She gave him a strange answer.
"Maurice," she said, "it may be so, but do not despair if the cry comes again."
"What!" he exclaimed almost fiercely, "you—do you hear it then?"
"No, no, but it may come."
"It shall not. The silence is so beautiful."
He put his arms around her. The tears had sprung into his eyes.
"How weak I am," he said, with a fury against his own condition, "you must despise me."
"I love you," she said.