There was another silence. The storm began to pass gradually away. The lightning became rarer, and the intervals longer between flash and thunder.
“It is beginning to be clear,” she said at last. “All that has troubled me. All that you guessed I was feeling, and that I told you of only when you compelled me. You have been right. Once—do you remember?—you said that if I saw God through the beauty and the vanity of the world all would be well.”
“I ought to have told you to see Him through the pain of the world,” said Herold.
“You have told me that, in other words, ever since; and I was deaf.”
“Not I, dear,” said Herold.
“Yes, you. Now I understand.” She drew a deep breath. “Now, I understand. It's like an open book. That woman—Unity—wait,” she paused, and put her two hands to her head in the darkness. “I have a glimmer of a memory—it's so illusive. It seems that I saw Unity just now. I understand all that she was, all that she meant.” A flash showed the sea. “Yes, I was out there,” she cried excitedly, and pointed. “Just out there.” Darkness engulfed them. “I forget,” she faltered, “I forget.”
“But the sea has taken you back at last, Stellamaris,” said Herold.
She seized his hand and held it during the peal. Then she cried in a tone of sudden terror:
“Walter!”
“Yes?”