“Very well,” said Herold. “Let us put it at that. It’s your point of view. You also force me to speak. It would be grotesque to keep silence any longer. Yes, I do love her. She is the beginning and end of life to me. If she had lain on her back all her days, I should never have married another woman. There! You have it now.”
The two men’s eyes held each other for a space. Stellamaris looked at the pair with a fearful admiration. They were men. Herold she had divined and known long ago; this, on his part, was only the supreme fulfilment of promise. But John Risca, who had passed through the illusion and disillusion of her soul, stood before her in new strength, a great and moving figure.
At last John drew a deep breath, turned to Stellamaris very gently, and smiled.
“And you?”
The smile sent swift pain through her heart. She made a step or two, and fell sobbing on his breast.
“O Belovedest, I am sorry! You have guessed right. Forgive me!”
He caressed the bowed head tenderly for an instant, then releasing himself, he clapped his hand on Herold’s shoulder and shook it with rough affection.
“I’m going to bed,” said he. He moved to the door. There he paused to nod a good night; but at sight of them both looking sadly at him he walked back a couple of paces.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m at peace with myself for the first time for years. There’s lots of happiness in the world left.” He smiled again. “Enough for the three of us—and for Unity.”
He left them, and went to bed in the room which Stellamaris had furnished for him long ago, and fell into the sleep of the man who has found rest at last in the calm and certain knowledge of spiritual things. Unity had not died in vain. And Stellamaris, sitting once more by Herold’s side in the wide bay of the window, and talking with him in a hushed voice of the wondrous things that had come to pass, knew that John Risca had spoken a great truth. It had been God’s will that so should the terrible splendor of the world be made manifest.