In those
days he had felt sufficient for life; now all his feeling was summed up
in the desire that was scarcely a hope, that some heavenly power, holy
and strong, would come to his aid.
It is when the whole good of life hangs in a trembling balance that
people become like children, and feel the need of the motherly powers of
Heaven. Caius sat with Day for two hours, and Josephine did not come
down to speak to him. He was glad to know that Day's evening passed the
more easily because he sat there with him; he was glad of that when he
was glad of nothing that concerned himself.
Day and Caius did not talk about death or sorrow, or anything like that.
All the remarks that they interchanged turned upon the horses Day was
rearing and their pastures. Day told that he had found the grass on the
little island rich.
"I remember finding two of your colts there one day when I explored it.
It was four years ago," said Caius dreamily.
Day took no interest in this lapse of time.
"It's an untidy bit of land," he said, "and I can't clear it. 'Tisn't
mine; but no one heeds the colts grazing."
"Do you swim them across?" asked Caius, half in polite interest, half
because his memory was wandering upon the water.
"They got so sharp at swimming, I had to raise the fence on the top of
the cliff," said Day.
The evening wore away.
In the morning Caius, smitten with the fever of hope and fear, rose up
at dawn, and, as in a former time he had been wont to do, ran to the
seashore by the nearest path and walked beside the edge of the waves.
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