It would never be a house quite empty.

Never again would he be alone.

He knew at last it was an undying part of him, as it had been a part of his father, clinging to him in sweet pain, encouraging him, pressing gently upon him the beginning of a great faith that somewhere beyond was a place to meet again.

In the many days that followed, it grew in him, but in a way no man or woman could see.

It was a secret about which he built a wall, setting it apart from that stoical placidity of his nature which some people called indifference.