'By George!' he said aloud. He felt strange, great life pour through
him. He had made a discovery ... in his heart ... deep, deep down.
Something in himself, so long buried it was scarcely recognisable,
stirred out of sight and tried to rise. Some flower of his youth that
time had hardened, dried, yet never killed, moved gently towards
blossoming. It shone. It was still hard a little, like a crystal,
glistening down there among shadows that had gathered with the years.
And then it suddenly melted, running in a tiny thread of gold among
his thoughts into that quiet sea which so rarely in a man may dare the
relief of tears. It was a tiny yellow flower, like a daisy that had
forgotten to close at night, so that some stray starbeam changed its
whiteness into gold.
Forgotten passion, and yearning long denied, stirred in him with that
phrase. His cousin's children doubtless had prepared the way. A faded
Dream peered softly into his eyes across the barriers of the years.
For every woman in the world was a mother, and a childless woman was
the grandest, biggest mother of them all. And he had longed for
children of his own; he, too, had remained a childless father. A
vanished face gazed up into his own. Two vessels, making the same fair
harbour, had lost their way, yet still sailed, perhaps, the empty
seas.
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