Oh, I am glad!" and Halcyone clapped her hands.

"She is my mother, and so, you see, I am never alone here, for she speaks always to me of love." John Derringham looked at her sharply as she said this, and in her eyes he saw two wells of purity, each with an evening star melted into its depths.
And he suddenly was conscious of something which his whole life had missed--for he knew he did not know what real love meant, not even that which his mother might have given him, if she had lived.
He did not speak for a moment; he gazed into Halcyone's face.

It seemed as if a curtain had lifted for one instant and given him a momentary glimpse into some heaven, and then dropped again, leaving a haunting memory of sweetness, the more beautiful because indistinct.
"Love--" he said, still dreamily.

"Surely there is yet another and a deeper kind of love." Halcyone raised her head, while a strange look grew in her wide eyes, almost of fear.

It was as though he had put into words some unspoken, unadmitted thought.
"Yes," she said very softly, "I feel there is--but that is not all peace; that must be gloriously terrible, because it would mean life." He looked at her fully now; there was not an atom of coquetry or challenge; her face was pale and exquisite in its simple intentness.