“He believed in miracles.  And so they were always happening to him....  Oh, it’s all so simple when you stop to think.”

Then there was silence and the creeping twilight.  Sam O’Neill stood picking at a splotch on the ancient plaster, with strong, yellow-gloved hands.  Mr. Dayne walked about, his arms crossed behind him.  Upon Pond there came a sort of restlessness.

He said abruptly:  “How long’ has Miss Heth been here?”

“Oh—­a—­little while,” said the parson, rousing....  “Long enough, no doubt.”

The dark-eyed Director was standing.  The two men exchanged a look; they seemed to feel each other.  Here was a matter with which the Labor Commissioner had nothing to do.

“Well, then,” said Pond, with a little intake of breath, “I’ll go in.”

The Director shut the door into the hall, took his hat from the chair.  He crossed the bare waiting-room, and turned the knob of the frequented door into the office.

This door he opened, gently, just far enough to let himself in; he closed it at once behind him.  Nevertheless, by the chance of their position, the other two saw, through the darkness of the room beyond, what was not meant for their eyes.

A simple scene, in all truth; none commoner in the world; it really did not matter who saw.  Yet the two men in the waiting-room, beholding, turned away, and Sam O’Neill bit a groan through in the middle.

He had never understood his friend, but he had loved him in his way.  Old memories twitched; his poise wavered.  He lacked the parson’s inner supports.  He paced about for some time, making little noises in his throat.  And then he tried his voice on a question.

“Did you ever hear him speak of John the Baptist?”

Mr. Dayne halted, and looked.

And Sam O’Neill, with some difficulty and in his own way, told of V.V.’s creed about the Huns.  Of how he had maintained that they needed awakening, nothing else, and were always ready and waiting for it, no matter how little they themselves knew that.  And, finally, how he had said one day—­in a phrase that had been brought flashing back over the months—­that if a man but called to such as these in the right voice, he could not hide himself where they would not come to him on their knees....

Mr. Dayne had stood listening with a half-mystical look, a man groping for elusive truths.  Now his fine composure seemed to cloud for a moment; but it shone out again, fair and strong.  And presently, as he paced, he was heard humming again his strange paradoxical song, which he, a parson, seemed to lean upon, as a wounded man leans on his friend.

* * * * *

Her spirit returned to her body from the far countries, not without some pain of juncture.  But there was no strangeness now in being in this room; none in finding Mr. Pond at her side, his saddened gaze upon her.  Happen what might, nothing any more would ever seem strange....