Chapter 34

This was what she had been thinking of. This had been the meaning of the
tender thought for him he had recognised uncomprehendingly in her look:
it had been the cause of her desire to enfold him in healing and restful
peace. When he had felt that she drew so close to him that they were
scarcely separated by physical being, it was because she had suddenly
awakened to a new comprehension. The awakening must have been a sudden
one. He had known at the church that it had taken all her last remnant
of strength to aid her to lay her cold hand in his and he had seen
shrinking terror in her eyes when she lifted them to his as he put on
her wedding ring. He had also known perfectly what memory had beset her
at the moment and he had thrown all the force of his will into the look
which had answered her--the look which had told her that he understood.
Yes, the awakening must have been sudden and he asked himself how it had
come about--what had made all clear?

He had never been a mystic, but during the cataclysmic hours through
which men were living, many of them stunned into half blindness and then
shocked into an unearthly clarity of thought and sight, he had come upon
previously unheard of signs of mysticism on all sides. People
talked--most of them blunderingly--of things they would not have
mentioned without derision in pre-war days. Premonitions, dreams,
visions, telepathy were not by any means always flouted with raucous
laughter and crude witticisms. Even unorthodox people had begun to hold
tentatively religious views.

Was he becoming a mystic at last? As he walked by Robin's side on the
moor, as he dined with her, talked with her, sat and watched her at her
sewing, more than ever each hour he believed that her dream was no
ordinary fantasy of the unguided brain. She had in some strange way
seen Donal. Where--how--where he had come from--where he returned after
their meeting--he ceased to ask himself. What did it matter after all if
souls could so comfort and sustain each other? The blessedness of it was
enough.

He wondered as Dowie had done whether she would reveal anything to him
or remain silent. There was no actual reason why she should speak. No
remotest reference to the subject would come from himself.

It was in truth a new planet he lived on during this marvel of a week.
The child was wonderful, he told himself. He had not realised that a
feminine creature could be so exquisitely enfolding and yet leave a man
so wholly free. She was not always with him, but her spirit was so near
that he began to feel that no faintest wish could form itself within his
mind without her mysteriously knowing of its existence and realising it
while she seemed to make no effort. She did pretty things for him