ow-true?"

She sat down in the chair near him and picked up the Book. "What shall
I read?" she asked without looking up. "It must be something that will
soothe, and not make you think, except happily."

"It's all there.... The stately prose of Isaiah--I love the ringing
authority of it----"

She read. There were delicate shadings of volume, even in her lowered
voice, which lent a fine natural quality to her expression. Bedient
knew the words, but he loved the mystery of this giving of hers--her
giving of peace to him.... He had obeyed her implicitly, and the
morning had become very dear.... Ill and weary, all his nerves smarting
with terrific fatigue, as the eyes smart before tears, and yet her
ministering had made him a little boy again.... His eyelids were shut
and he was happy. It was a bewildering sense, so long had he been, and
so far, from a moment like this. His immortal heroine was close once
more--she of the answered questions and the healing arms. So real was
it, that he thought this must be death.... A sign from _her_ made him
know that it was not.... Queer, bright thoughts winged in and out of
his mind. There was a drowsy sweep to the atmosphere--no, it was the
nuances of the voice that read to him.... "When one comes to see in
this life a clearer, brighter way for the conduct of the next, he has
not failed." His mind went over this several times.... And presently he
felt himself sailing through space toward one bright star. For
eternities he had sailed--dominant, deathless--often wavering in the
zones of attraction of other worlds, but never really losing that
primal impetus for his own light of the universe.... And so while she
read, Bedient drifted afar, sailing on and on toward his star....

She saw that he slept, and her head dropped forward until it touched
the edge of his bed, but very softly.... And there, for a long time,
she remained, until the woven cane left a white impress upon her
forehead.

Late in the afternoon the others met below, but Bedient had not
awakened. Miss Mallory joined them and told what she had done, and how
ill he had been for need of rest.... When the day was ending she stole
through the little room into his. Still he slept, so softly, that she
bent close to hear his breathing.... All the furious moments of action
in recent days passed in swift review, as she stood there in the dark.
And from it all came this:

"It is a good thing for a woman to serve a man, with hand a