n your grief at such a time. This
is merely a line to say that you are never absent from my
mind.

"And Clive, nothing really dies. This is quite true. I am not
speaking of what faith teaches us. Faith is faith. But those
who 'see clearly' _know_. Nothing dies, Clive. _Nothing._
That is even more than faith teaches us. Yet it, also, is
true.

"Dear little boy of my childhood, dear lad of my girlhood,
and, of my womanhood, dearest of men, I pray that God will
comfort you and yours.

"I was twelve years old the only time I ever saw your father.
He spoke so sweetly to me--put his arm around my
shoulders--asked me if I were Red Riding Hood or the Princess
Far Away.

"And, to obey him, I went to find _my_ father. And found him
dead. Or what the world calls dead.

"Later, as I stood there outside the door, stunned by what
had happened, back through the doorway came running a boy.
Clive, if you have forgotten what you said to that child
there by the darkened doorway of life, the girl who writes
this has never forgotten.

"And now, since sorrow has come to you, in my turn I seek you
where you stand by a darkened door alone, and I send to you
my very soul in this poor, inky letter,--all I can
offer--Clive--all that I believe--all that I am.
"ATHALIE."

So much for tribute and condolence as far as she could be concerned
where she remained among the other millions outside the sacred
threshold across which her letter and her flowers had gone, across
which the girl herself might never go.

After a few days he wrote and thanked her for her letter, not of
course knowing about the lilies:

"It is the first time death has ever come very near me. I had
been told and had always thought that we were a long-lived
race.

"I am still dazed by it. I suppose the sharper grief will
come when this dull, unreal sense of stupefaction wears away.

"We were very close together, my father and I. Oh, but we
might have been closer, Athalie!--I might have been with him
oftener, seen more of him, spent less time away from him.

"I _did_ try to be a good son. I could have been far better.
It's a bitter thing to realise at such a time.

"And I had so much to say to him. I cannot understand that I
can never say it now.... Athalie dear, my mother wishes me to
take her abroad.