“David!” she cried.  “David!  Oh, I believe I understand!”

She went to her desk, and, as if she were compelled, began to write.  Afterward she found she had written this:—­

     “DEAR DAVID:—­

“It is your birthday, and I, who am so used to sending you a present, cannot be deterred now.  Oh, David, my husband, you who fathered my children, you, who, in spite of all, belong to me, let me tell you how I have at last come, out of the storm of angers and torments of the past year, into a sheltered room where you seem to sit waiting to hear me say, ‘I forgive you.’

“That is my present to you—­my forgiveness.  Take it from me with lifted hands as if it were a sacrament; feed on it, for it is holy bread.  Now we shall both be at peace, shall we not?  You will forgive me, too, for all I did not do.

     “We are willful children, all of us, and night over-takes us
     before we have half learned our lessons.

     “Oh, David—­”

She broke off suddenly.  Something cold seemed to envelop her—­cold as a crevasse and black as death.  She gave a strangled cry, wrenched the collar from her throat, fighting in vain against the mounting waves that overwhelmed her.

Long afterward, she shuddered up out of her unconsciousness.  The fire had burned itself out; the lamp was sputtering for lack of oil.  Somewhere in the distance a coyote called.  She was dripping with cold sweat, and had hardly strength to find the thing that would warm her and to get off her clothes and creep into bed.

At first she was afraid to put out the light.  It seemed as if, should she do so, the very form and substance of Terror would come and grip her.  But after a time, slowly, wave upon wave, the sea of Peace rolled over her—­submerging her.  She reached out then and extinguished the light and let herself sink down, down, through the obliterating waters of sleep—­waters as deep, as cold, as protecting as the sea.

“Into the Eternal Arms,” she breathed, not knowing why.

But when she awakened the next morning in response to the punctual gong, she remembered that she had said that.

“Into the Eternal Arms.”

She came down to breakfast with the face of one who has eaten of the sacred bread of the spirit.

* * * * *

The next two days passed vaguely.  A gray veil appeared to hang between her and the realities, and she had the effect of merely going through the motions of life.  The children caused her no trouble.  They were, indeed, the most normal of children, and Mrs. Hays, their old-time nurse, had reduced their days to an agreeable system.  Honora derived that peculiar delight from them which a mother may have when she is not obliged to be the bodily servitor and constant attendant of her children.  She was able to feel the poetry of their childhood, seeing