He went up the half-flight of stairs to Noel’s narrow little room, next the nursery.  No voice answered his tap.  It was dark, but he could see her at the window, leaning far out, with her chin on her hands.

“Nollie!”

She answered without turning:  “Such a lovely night, Daddy.  Come and look!  I’d like to set the goat free, only he’d eat the rock plants.  But it is his night, isn’t it?  He ought to be running and skipping in it:  it’s such a shame to tie things up.  Did you never, feel wild in your heart, Daddy?”

“Always, I think, Nollie; too wild.  It’s been hard to tame oneself.”

Noel slipped her hand through his arm.  “Let’s go and take the goat and skip together on the hills.  If only we had a penny whistle!  Did you hear the bugle?  The bugle and the goat!”

Pierson pressed the hand against him.

“Nollie, be good while I’m away.  You know what I don’t want.  I told you in my letter.”  He looked at her cheek, and dared say no more.  Her face had its “fey” look again.

“Don’t you feel,” she said suddenly, “on a night like this, all the things, all the things—­the stars have lives, Daddy, and the moon has a big life, and the shadows have, and the moths and the birds and the goats and the trees, and the flowers, and all of us—­escaped?  Oh!  Daddy, why is there a war?  And why are people so bound and so unhappy?  Don’t tell me it’s God—­don’t!”

Pierson could not answer, for there came into his mind the Greek song he had been reading aloud that afternoon—­

    “O for a deep and dewy Spring,
     With runlets cold to draw and drink,
     And a great meadow blossoming,
     Long-grassed, and poplars in a ring,
     To rest me by the brink. 
     O take me to the mountain, O,
     Past the great pines and through the wood,
     Up where the lean hounds softly go,
     A-whine for wild things’ blood,
     And madly flies the dappled roe,
     O God, to shout and speed them there;
     An arrow by my chestnut hair
     Drawn tight and one keen glimmering spear
     Ah! if I could!”

All that in life had been to him unknown, of venture and wild savour; all the emotion he had stifled; the swift Pan he had denied; the sharp fruits, the burning suns, the dark pools, the unearthly moonlight, which were not of God—­all came with the breath of that old song, and the look on the girl’s face.  And he covered his eyes.

Noel’s hand tugged at his arm.  “Isn’t beauty terribly alive,” she murmured, “like a lovely person? it makes you ache to kiss it.”

His lips felt parched.  “There is a beauty beyond all that,” he said stubbornly.

“Where?”

“Holiness, duty, faith.  O Nollie, my love!” But Noel’s hand tightened on his arm.

“Shall I tell you what I should like?” she whispered.  “To take God’s hand and show Him things.  I’m certain He’s not seen everything.”