to St. Andrew's, he might find the reason why."
What could she mean by the reference to St. Andrew's? He caught at that
as a clue. Could the old church tell him what had reared itself in such
dismal fashion between them?

Without stopping to think of the darkness or that the friendly doors of
the edifice would be closed, he caught up his hat and went swiftly down
the drive to the road, along which he plunged breathlessly. The blue
star-sprinkled sky was now streaked with clouds like faded orchids, and
the shadows on the uneven ground under his hurried feet made him giddy.
Through the din and hurly-burly of his thoughts he was conscious of
dimly-moving shapes across fences, the sweet breath of cows, and a negro
pedestrian who greeted him in passing. He was stricken suddenly with
the thought that Shirley was suffering, too. It seemed incredible that
he should now be raging along a country road at nightfall to find
something that so horribly hurt them both.

It was almost dark--save for the starlight--when he saw the shadow of
the square ivy-grown spire rearing stark from its huddle of foliage
against the blurred background. He pushed open the gate and went slowly
up the worn path toward the great iron-bound and hooded door. Under the
larches on either hand the outlines of the gravestones loomed pallidly,
and from the bell-tower came the faint inquiring cry of a small owl.
Valiant stood still, looking about him. What could he learn here? He
read no answer to the riddle. A little to one side of the path something
showed snow-like on the ground, and he went toward it. Nearer, he
saw that it was a mass of flowers, staring up whitely from the
semi-obscurity from within an iron railing. He bent over, suddenly
noting the scent; it was cape jessamine.

With a curious sensation of almost prescience plucking at him, he took a
box of vestas from his pocket and struck one. It flared up illuminating
a flat granite slab in which was cut a name and inscription:

_EDWARD SASSOON_
"Forgive us our trespasses."

The silence seemed to crash to earth like a great looking-glass and
shiver into a million pieces. The wax dropped from his fingers and in
the supervening darkness a numb fright gripped him by the throat.
Shirley had laid these there, on the grave of the man his father had
killed--the cape jessamines she had wanted that day, _for her mother_!
He understood.

* * * * *

It came to him