And in her room the talk he had heard became to him suddenly remote, that restless world of small account.

For in Edith, in the one brief hour since her father had seen her last, there had come a great transformation, into her face an eager light.

She was slipping down into a weird small world which for a brief but fearful season was to be utterly her own, with agony and bloody sweat, and joy and a deep mystery.

Clumsily he took her hand.

It was moist and he felt it clutch his own.