dizzy with a deadly yet delicious faintness. The mighty tenderness, the
compassion, the splendor of that giant smile overpowered him and
swallowed him up.

For one second, in dreadful silence, he gazed. Then, rising to meet the
test with a courage that he felt might somehow involve the alteration if
not the actual destruction of his own little personality, but that also
proved his supreme gameness at the same time, he tried to smile in
return.... The strange and pitiful attempt upon his own face perhaps, in
the semi-obscurity, was not seen. He only remembers that he somehow found
strength to crawl forward and close the door with a bang, though not the
strength to turn the key and lock it, and that two seconds later, having
kicked the candle over and out in his flying leap, he was in the middle
of the bed under a confused pile of sheets and blankets, weeping with
muffled sobs in the darkness as though his heart must burst with the
wonder and terror of all he had witnessed.

For, to the simple in heart, at the end of all possible stress and strain
of emotion, comes mercifully the blinding relief of tears....

And then, although too overcome to be able to prove it even to himself,
it was significant that, lying there smothered among the bedclothes, he
became aware of the presence of something astonishingly sweet and
comforting in his consciousness. It came quite suddenly upon him; the
reaction he experienced, he says, was very wonderful, for with it the
sense of absolute safety and security returned to him. Like a terrified
child in the darkness who suddenly knows that its mother stands by the
bed, all-powerful to soothe, he felt certain that some one had moved into
the room, was close beside him, and was even trying to smooth his pillow
and arrange the twisted bedclothes.

He did not dare uncover his face to see, for he was still dominated by
the memory of Mr. Skale's portentous visage; but his ears were not so
easily denied, and he was positive that he heard a voice that called his
name as though it were the opening phrase of some sweet, childhood
lullaby. There was a touch about him somewhere, it seemed, of delicate
cool hands that brought with them the fragrance as of a scented summer
wind; and the last thing he remembered before he sank away into welcome
unconsciousness was an impression, fugitive and dreamlike, of a gentle
face, unstained and pale as marble, that bent above his pillow, and,
singing, called him a