blessedness is increased ten-fold; it takes on a certain divinity by
being shared, and thereafter, they serve the light together.

And yet, through woman's eager trustfulness, the man who opens the door
is not always the one divinely appointed to open it. Sometimes the light
fails and the woman, weeping in the darkness, is left alone in her
profaned temple, never to open its door again, or, after many years, to
set another light high upon the altar, and, in the deepening shadows,
pray.

So, because the door had never been opened, and because she knew the man
had come at last who might enter the sanctuary with her, Rose lifted her
ever-burning light that night to the high altar of her soul, and set
herself to wait until he should find his way there.






VII

FATHER AND SON

The house seemed very quiet, though steadily, from a distant upper room,
came the sound of a violin. For more than an hour, Allison had worked
continuously at one difficult phrase. Colonel Kent smiled whimsically as
he sat in the library, thinking that, by this time, he could almost play
it himself.